To Put It In Perspective
by Raberba girl
Summary: The great (human) warrior Toothless watches his crazy little dragon Hiccup charm yet another hostile enemy into submission. Originally a standalone vignette; now a species swap multi-chapter that covers the whole HTTYD1 story arc.
1. original vignette

To Put It In Perspective

(rough draft)

A DreamWorks' _How to Train Your Dragon_ fanfic by Raberba girl

Summary: The great (human) warrior Toothless watches his crazy little dragon Hiccup charm _yet another_ hostile enemy into submission.

o.o.o

No matter how many times it happens, and no matter how many times things end up being perfectly fine, I just can't get used to it. I _can't_. Hiccup is so _tiny_ , and I love him _so much_ , it always feels like he's killing me when he flirts with death like this.

Hiccup has been sniffing out some dragon thing that he finds supremely interesting, and I've been following him because I'm bored and have nothing better to do. Of course we happened to stumble upon the campsite of an army deserter, a huge man with rippling muscles and a beard like a bird's nest and a growling voice and an enormous sword.

"What do you want? Where did you come from?" he demands, immediately raising his weapon.

I whip out my own blade at once. "None of your business! We were just passing through!"

I feel sick as his gaze turns to my precious, idiot dragon, who's yelping with delight at seeing this monster who could kill him so, so, so easily.

"What's _that_?!"

"He's _mine_ ," I snarl, scooping Hiccup into my arms. Of course the treasure I'm trying to protect immediately starts wriggling to get free. I'm convinced he has a death wish.

"That's a dragon!"

"He's MY dragon."

"Put it down so I've got a clear shot!" he bellows, raising his sword.

Hiccup barks inquisitively, without a shred of fear.

"Not a chance!"

Then Hiccup bites my arm, not to hurt me but because it's his way of insisting, _"Let me handle this!"_ I sigh very pointedly at him, but I crouch down and let him go. I will watch him work his amazing, special Hiccup magic yet again, and I will pray that this is not the time when we'll finally, finally discover someone who's immune to it.

Hiccup prances eagerly up to the warrior, who stabs down with his blade. Hiccup manages to dodge, crooning in a soothing sort of way as if he has no idea how close he came to death.

"Stay still, you little monster!"

"He's not a monster!" I cry. "He's a _good_ dragon! There ARE such things as good dragons, you know!"

Hiccup does that move I absolutely hate, where he rolls over onto his back and waves his paws in the air as if announcing eagerly, _"Here I am, please kill me now!"_ As usual, my imagination is swarmed by images of cruel, sharp blades driving down into the soft, exposed belly of my best friend.

And as usual, the warrior's face softens instead. "What are you _doing_ , little monster?" he murmurs, crouching down to rub Hiccup's belly. Hiccup gurgles his joy and nuzzles the man's hand.

"Heh. You're kind of cute, huh." Seconds later, the huge burly warrior is petting and caressing my little dragon as one would a kitten, cooing at him in baby-talk. Hiccup is blissfully purring and licking his face and nuzzling him. "Soooo cute, that's right~ That's _right_ , you sweet thing, you wouldn't hurt a fly, would you~!"

Hiccup flops his head back and gives me a dragon smile as if to say, _"See? Told ya it would be all right!"_

One of these days. _One of these days_ , Hiccup, someone is not going to fall for your cuteness, they're just going to keep looking at you with cold eyes and they're going to kill you and then my heart will shatter.

But for what it's worth, I really, really, really hope I'm wrong.

o.o.o

Author's Notes: Just a very random vignette idea I got tonight, vaguely similar to _He's Not Dangerous_ , where I try to put Tooth's relationship with his exasperating human in perspective. XD


	2. Book 1, chapter 1

To Put It In Perspective

(rough draft)

A DreamWorks' _How to Train Your Dragon_ fanfic by Raberba girl

 **Book 1 - The Queen Falls**

Summary: "How to Train Your Dragon" where the human characters are dragons and the dragon characters are human. Narrated by Toothless.

A/N: There is a fic with a similar premise called _God of Thunder, Hear Me Roar_ by ilikeexploding on AO3. I really enjoyed that fic (though I came up with the idea for _To Put It In Perspective_ independently), and was disappointed that it seems to have been abandoned (it hasn't been updated since October 2014, and the author never responded to my reviews).

The perspective is a mix of first person Toothless and third person omniscient.

 **The idea of dragon hoards providing them with essential nutrients is from Diana Wynne Jones's book** _ **Dark Lord of Derkholm**_ **.**

 **There are some elements of dragon culture in this fic which differ from the dragon culture in my main headcanon, though much of it is the same.**

 **Chapter 1**

I've never liked raiding dragon nests. Not many of us do. My people have always known that human lust for gold leads to corruption of the soul, and our queen, a magic-user and therefore even more prone to it, is a picture-perfect example of greed at its worst.

But now we know that it's more than just a matter of abstract morals. About 20 or so years ago, someone finally figured out that the dragons aren't being greedy, either - they actually _need_ that gold as much as they need food, they will _physically_ starve to death if they're deprived of it. They can last a little longer if they've got enough meat, but without those additional nutrients from the gold and silver and gemstones getting absorbed through their scales, they'll still wither away eventually.

It's cruel. Old studies, from before _she_ ascended the throne, indicated that dragons are not aggressive creatures by nature, that they tend to use violence mostly for self-defense. We're the ones who attacked them first, not the other way around. They wouldn't have had a problem with us if we hadn't started trying to indirectly exterminate them.

Yet here we all are, night after night after endless night, invading hidden nests and plundering the treasure these creatures need to live and slaughtering all who get in our way.

To protect the dried-up remains of my heart, I've numbed myself to the sight of dragon blood and the sound of dragon screams, I've even numbed myself to the shame of making hatchlings shriek in terror. But I try not to let myself go far enough to where I actually start believing the queen's lies, because if there's one truth in my life, it's that what we are doing is _wrong_. To deny that would mean to give up my last shred of humanity, and for all the misery of this life, I still want to be human. She already controls me enough, I don't want to become a soulless replica of _her_ and the evil she embodies.

My job during the raids is usually to take out long-distance defenders. Dragons are tough, strong, flying fire-breathers, most of whom are 3-4 feet tall (on four legs, since they're _way_ taller if they're rearing up on their hind legs). The 5-footers are rare but especially nasty. All dragons are difficult to take down in hand-to-hand combat, but at least you have a good chance if you know what you're doing and are preferably well-armed.

However, when they're blasting fire at you from the safety of the air and you're reduced to darting around trying to use up their shot limit without being able to retaliate at the end, you have a lot less of a chance. I've been in battle multiple times during every week of my life for two years, since I was thirteen, and being able to shoot dragons out of the sky has kind of become my specialty.

This nest is the closest one to our territory, therefore it's been raided the most and has the least to steal. Still, we're desperate and keep hitting it on the rotation anyway, and over time, I've come to admire the exceptional stubbornness of this flock. It's led by the most enormous dragon alpha I've ever seen (one of those fearsome 5-footers), whom we started calling 'Stoick the Vast,' and he certainly keeps his flock in line.

No matter how hard they're hit, they won't leave. Their flock size never increases, but it's been slow to dwindle, too. They almost _always_ have treasure, so you know they must have half-killed themselves trying to replenish their supplies after every raid. They are never afraid of us.

Their determination and their hatred of us runs deep, you can see it blazing in their reptilian eyes and thundering in their sky-cracking roars, and it's made them impossible to eradicate for decades. That's good in that it means a continued source of plunder for us, and good in that it feels a lot less like a massacre when you're having to fight for your life, but it's bad in that the dragons of this flock are the scariest to face. You're never less certain of your fate than when it's your turn to raid the Berk flock.

I don't have time to think about any of that right now. At this moment, I am balanced in the shadows on a tree branch, wholly focused on my target, raising my arrow to fire. Dragons don't have many weak points in their tough, scaled hide, but they do have a few, and I am one of the best at hitting those weak points from a distance and in the dark. I loose my arrow, and the dragon falls to earth with a cry, where he will either be rescued by one of his flockmates or cut to pieces by my fellow warriors so that he won't be able to defend his hoard when we loot it.

I can't think about that right now, either. My job at this moment is to draw another arrow, raise it up, aim-

Something knocks into me. I don't know _what it is_ , I'm pretty sure it's alive and purposeful, yet far too small to be a dragon soaring up behind me in the dark on sneakily silent wings. But _whatever_ it is, it's thrown me off balance, I'm toppling out of the tree, I'm already arranging my body to land as I've been taught, to roll up into a fighting stance and not lose a moment's-

 _The ground gives way_. I don't even have _time_ to start rolling because it's not solid earth, it's a pile of sticks and fallen branches, I'm _still_ falling, sharp points and edges are stabbing at me and tearing open my skin as I tumble without control down this freaking steep hillside, why can't I move, something tangling my limbs can't be just tree branches, _vines_ , it's like this is a TRAP, what freaking insanely scary dragon is freaking intelligent enough to build a _trap_ that can catch a _human_ -?!

I come to a jolting stop as pain shoots through my skull, and I pass out.

o.o.o.o.o

At the first sign of approaching humans, the dragon alpha rushed to find his offspring. There was only one, a half-grown male, who had come from the only one of the alpha and his lost mate's eggs that had ever hatched.

The alpha located his fledgling quickly, scooped him up in his jaws, and rushed away with him. The fledgling, a runt who was closer to the size of months-old hatchlings than his own peers, knew better than to struggle. He dangled limply from his sire's mouth, helpless and humiliated and resentful. He was always treated more like a baby than like the maturing almost-adult he was. Since there was nothing he could do about it at the moment, he allowed himself to be deposited in one of the burrows where all the real hatchlings and the younglings and the elderly and the sick were safely hidden during raids.

The alpha rumbled in warning. The fledgling sighed, but obediently raised his head and exposed his throat in submission. The alpha snorted his acceptance, licked his offspring for reassurance, then rushed off again to begin the work of defending his home from these terrible invaders.

As soon as the alpha was out of sight, the fledging trotted to the back of the burrow, toward the alternate exit. He crawled through it, emerged on the edge of the battle, barked in excitement, then rushed away to his project in the woods.

It was distant from the nest because the fledgling knew that his sire would stop him if he found out, but also because he _knew_ that not all humans attacked the nest directly. He knew that mysterious missiles would appear out of nowhere to knock his flockmates out of the air, he knew that they often came from this hilltop, and he reasoned that a human must sneak out here and use the distance and the shadows to cloak itself as it shot down dragons.

Because the fledgling knew this, he had spent a long time collecting sticks and branches and jagged rocks and clumps of vines, stashing them in various places close to the hill. He knew exactly what to do with them when the time came, all he needed was a human close enough to the right place, and enough time to set things up.

The little dragon moved through the woods, sniffing. He was delighted to catch a scent, and flitted upward to locate his target. There, on that tree branch, a monster in the shadows, entirely focused on the battle and not noticing the little runt silently investigating him... _perfect_...

The young dragon swooped away without a sound, and spent the next twenty minutes dragging the elements of his trap to the right place, arranging them as needed. The sticks first, to give way under pressure and jab soft human flesh with their sharp edges. Rocks a little farther down, to bruise and tear. Large quantities of long, looping vines, enough of them to ensnare, to wrap around flailing limbs and hold them tight and stop them from reaching for horrible human weapons...

Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe this would work. Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe the fledgling could actually catch a human and make it helpless and kill it. Then he could bring a piece of its flesh to his sire and prove that he was a good dragon and not a useless baby, that he could help protect their nest, too. (And maybe it would _finally_ impress that beautiful golden female, and maybe she would agree to become his mate...? Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe?)

When everything was ready, the little dragon couldn't help chirring very softly in anticipation. Then he snaked soundlessly up the tree trunk, paused at the base of the branch, spread his wings to give him balance and courage...then charged forward and rammed into the human monster with all the strength he had.

The human squawked and fell. And _fell_. The dragon could smell blood and was delighted. He flapped down to the ground and began to follow the trail to his captive.

He was so engrossed in the hunt, his very first hunt, that he didn't notice until it was too late when a meaty human fist came at him in the darkness. It seized him, jerked him up and held him helpless in the air in a crushing grip. The dragon only had time for a cry of surprise and terror before his jaws were clamped together. He'd forgotten to try to shoot until it was too late. He saw the glint of moonlight on metal, he was going to die, that blade was going to plunge into him and spill his lifeblood and he was going to die-

The alpha thundered out of the forest, roaring in absolute fury. The human immediately dropped the runt and whirled to face the great beast. There was a brief flurry of combat, the blade flashed again and again and missed both times. Then the alpha managed to get his mighty jaws around the human's neck, and he _tore_.

The little runt sat shivering on the blood-soaked ground, cheeping like a hatchling in distress and misery. Again, he did not struggle when his sire's still-bloody jaws closed around him and lifted him up, though he squirmed a little in dismay at the anger practically radiating from the alpha's huge body. The alpha turned and stalked back to the heart of the nest, spat the tiny fledgling onto the ground as their weary flockmates crept close, and roared.

At the sound, the fledgling curled up in a miserable ball. The humans had been driven off, but at a price; all the gold and most of the gemstones were gone. If the fledgling had been hidden safely where he was supposed to be, the alpha would not have had to leave his post to rescue him. The humans he had been fighting would not have escaped, the treasure would still be here, but now dragons might die from malnourishment and it was the fledgling's fault.

The runt, remembering the success of his un-dragonlike trap, uncurled a little to vocalize at his sire, trying to explain. He had caught a human, he had been hunting a human before he was interrupted, he could show them and they would see-

The alpha ROARED again and pounced, pinning the little dragon under a giant forepaw, rolling him onto his back. The fledgling protested and struggled for a long moment, the only dragon who would dare to put up any resistance whatsoever when pinned so helplessly and faced with the enormous alpha's furious growling. But eventually, the young dragon realized the futility of it all, he stopped struggling and went limp. Although his tail twitched restlessly to show his unhappiness, he bared his throat in surrender and huffed out a resigned sigh.

The alpha leaned down and bit him, not hard enough to injure, but firmly enough to assert dominance. The much smaller dragon, despite the continued resentful twitching of his tail, whined in submission. The alpha finally released him and barked an order to his beta, a large dragon who was still a capable fighter despite the two badly-healed paws that had been injured long ago.

The beta limped forward and nudged the fledgling, who climbed to his paws with a sulky look and trudged away, his head and wings drooping, his tail dragging. He and his escort passed by the tired, resentful eyes of the rest of the flock, including a cluster of five other fledglings, the runt's only surviving agemates.

The sleek golden female spared a glare for the runt before she turned away to groom herself. The second-largest male, his dark brown scales rippling over well-developed muscles, howled at the runt in derision, as the largest male, shoulders hunched in uncertainty despite his size, chittered in nervous excitement. The last male and female - scruffy, yellow, almost identical clutchmates - cackled for a minute, then the female pawed at her brother and they tumbled into a play fight.

The runt half-heartedly hissed at the brown fledgling who had taunted him. The bigger fledgling started to arch his wings aggressively, but the beta dragon snarled in warning, sending the brown fledgling toppling back into his companions. The golden female got up and sauntered away, her disgust reflecting in the jerky flicks of her tail.

The beta marched his charge all the way to the alpha's cave aerie, where he closed his teeth on the little dragon and held him to the ground for a long minute, as if to say, _"_ _Stay there_ _and do not leave until you're told."_

The fledgling sulked, tail twitching, before finally baring his throat. The beta released him, licked him affectionately, then hobbled away.

The fledgling lay curled up for a long time, tail still twitching, listening hard. Then, when he felt sure that no one would see him, he crept out of his aerie and away from the nest and raced into the woods toward his prize.

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: **Again, I did not come up with the idea of dragon hoards providing them with nutrients; that is from Diana Wynne Jones's novel** _ **Dark Lord of Derkholm**_ **.**

 **I meant to keep my HiccStrid poll up a lot longer, but got indecisive about what stories to work on, so now there's a new poll on my FFN profile. ^^; Please vote! :D**

For this story, I had intended to stick very closely to the movie. There ended up being some things that I had to change a lot or completely skip over, but it's still recognizable at HTTYD1.

The rough draft for the HTTYD1 arc is complete; it's 10 chapters. I wrote the whole thing in a little over a week (I wish I could be so productive my original stories... *headdesk*).


	3. Book 1, chapter 2

_**To Put It In Perspective: The Queen Falls**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 2 (rough draft)**

Pain pain pain pain _pain_ , whatever happened to me was _really bad_ because it hurts _so much_. Groaning, my head still throbbing, I open my eyes to assess the damage.

My left arm feels like it's been broken into pieces, the tiniest movement makes it seem like it's on fire. It's covered with blood, and a sharp bit of bone is poking through my skin.

Vines are hopelessly tangled around me, pinning my good arm really awkwardly. My right wrist is practically tied to my waist, the vine wrapped tightly around me several times as if it rolled most of the way down the hill with me. My elbow's jutting out at a really uncomfortable angle.

Both ends of the vine wrapped around my right ankle have gotten caught around a tree farther up the hill from me, I can't get free just by tugging. I'd have to wriggle my way up there, inch by painful inch, and work my way around the trunk to get it unsnared, then kick my leg in circles until I can hopefully unloop the vine from it, which will hurt. I can tell from trying to flex it that the ankle must have been sprained a little from the jolt. My left leg just has a vine draped loosely over it; I'm able get free of it with one painful kick - but trying to brace my freed foot against the ground makes me scream in surprise and pain. That ankle is hurt much more badly than the right one.

What am I going to _do_? Two of my limbs are pretty much _tied up_ and the other two are injured, and I can barely think through the pain in my head. There's blood on my face. I guess I can try to get my right leg free, but even if I manage that (which I don't have high hopes for...), I still won't be able to walk or use my hands.

I have to do _something_ , though, so I start squirming across the ground, trying to force my way up the hill. But it hurts too much and my skull is _pounding_ , and finally I just pass out again.

o.o.o.o.o

I wake up because something is _crawling_ on me. I yell as a shudder of disgust ripples through me, and the creature immediately leaps away, hissing.

I open my eyes and am horrified to see a _dragon_. It's one of the smallest dragons I've ever seen, a tiny male with shining green and brown scales, but he's right next to my freaking _face_ with his wings flared rigidly and his tail lashing as he hisses at me with terrifying bared jaws.

I automatically go for my knife.

Except that I can't. It _hurts_ , I'd forgotten for a second that I'm injured. When I try to force my broken arm toward my knife, I can't make my fingers grasp it. My other wrist is starting to bleed a little from my desperate and unsuccessful attempts to twist it free. The bad foot won't take my weight, and I don't have nearly enough time to try to free the good foot (well, the _better_ foot).

I'm trapped. I'm _trapped_ , I can't move, I am completely and totally at the mercy of this creature the size of a housecat. He's almost as small as a hatchling, but he has the physical characteristics of a juvenile nearing adulthood; all his natural weapons are developed quite well enough to kill me. There is nothing I can do to stop him from plunging his little teeth into me and ripping out my throat. Or very slowly torturing me to death with tiny fireballs. Or whatever other unpleasant way he decides to take my life.

The dragon is stalking back and forth in agitation, growling, occasionally feinting at me, sometimes breaking off mid-growl to yelp and jerk back. Apparently he's about as terrified of me as I am of him, a frightened animal pretending to be fierce for long enough to intimidate a threat. Hah. As if I can even lift a finger to defend myself in this situation. Either finish me off or go _away_!

After he leaps and swipes at me and leaps back a few times, he apparently figures out that I can't hurt him. He throws his head back and crows in this infuriatingly triumphant way, then sort of parades around and over me to gloat. I hate this thing, if I could get my freaking knife out of its freaking sheath, I'd stab him full of holes in an instant...

He comes to a stop and growls in my face, perched on my chest and shoulder. I close my eyes because I can't stand to look at him anymore, but I can't escape the sensation of his weight and warmth pressing me down, the prick of his claws digging into me.

I feel his jaws close around my neck, and I try to force myself to relax. Maybe it's better this way... It's not like I had anything to live for, anyway. Some life, dancing to a mad queen's orders like a helpless puppet on strings, having nothing to show for my talents other than death and thievery and destruction, no one and nothing to love, maybe it _would_ be better for me to just die and finally rest...

What is freaking _taking_ this idiot dragon so long? His mouth is still on me but he hasn't pierced the skin yet, his saliva trickles down my neck as I wait for him to finish the job-

He lets go. He _lets go_ of me, without biting through my jugular. What, did he decide he'd rather torch me instead, or tear into my intestines, or nibble off a couple of fingers first or something?

I jerk when I feel something brush against my bound hand, and think for a wild moment that he really is going to gnaw my fingers off after all. But, craning my head to get a better look, I can see that he's actually gnawing on...the vine. The one binding my hand to my waist. He's chewing and scratching it as if trying to get it off, accidentally(?) cutting my skin in the process, but that doesn't matter - if I can get my uninjured hand free, then I can reach my knife. I'm _saved_ , I don't know _why this is happening_ but maybe I am SAVED...!

It seems to take forever, but at last, at _last_ , the final fiber parts and my hand is free. I have been waiting. The very instant I'm able to, I snatch my knife and slam my forearm hard against the dragon's tiny body, pinning him on his back with my blade angled to thrust straight into his reptilian heart. My broken arm is screaming in protest at the sudden movement, but I don't care; with such a small dragon, I can kill him with only one arm.

The dragon isn't a hatchling, but he sounds like one right now, terror making his cries high-pitched and desperate. He's thrashing fruitlessly, I'm pinning him too hard for him to wriggle free, his claws are at the wrong angle to do more than leave a few shallow scratches on my skin. He's as helpless now as I was seconds before. He is not going to be able to stop me from jerking my wrist, driving that blade deep into his body.

His eyes are fixed on me, huge and terrified and...betrayed. As if he's begging me to spare him, as if...as if he can't understand why I would kill him right after he'd freed me. Totally forgetting, apparently, that _he_ was the one who'd been about to kill _me_ a minute ago.

He's so small. He showed me mercy. He helped me. If I kill him now, I have a feeling I'll be killing that last shred of humanity that's left in me.

Okay, fine. I won't kill him, but I'm still mad at him for threatening me and scaring me before. I lean a little closer to him and hiss, "You don't know how lucky you got today, dragon. Don't you _ever_ come near me again." Then, hoping I'm not making a horrible mistake, I release him.

He dashes away so quickly that I don't even see what direction he's gone. I gingerly lie down again, making "Ah - ah - ah" noises of agony because I can no longer ignore the pain of my shattered arm. It did _not_ like when I moved, even though I'd tried to keep the arm itself from moving.

What am I going to do? Okay, so I didn't get my throat ripped out by a miniscule dragon, but what can I _do_ now? I'm still going to die, aren't I? Of dehydration if nothing else, there's no way I can make it back to the palace, I'm sure that the rest of the army is long gone by now, everyone will just assume that I got killed in the battle, no one will know to look for me, no one will ever find me...

I try hopelessly to start making my way toward that tree again, but I can't manage more than a few inches at a time. It freaking _hurts_ , my whole body hurts, my head still freaking hurts, super-noticeable again now that the distraction of nearly getting killed by a dragon is gone. I have to stop and rest so often, and finally I just _can't_ go on again. As if the rest of it wasn't enough, hunger and thirst are now plaguing me, too. Is there even any point in continuing to fight? Is there-

THAT DRAGON. He didn't flee far, he's _still there_ , peering out at me from the shadows. I growl at him to vent my feelings, but he doesn't move. After a while, I lose interest and scoot myself another half-inch up the hill, but I think I'm nearing the last of my strength. It just isn't worth it, especially since I _still_ won't be able to walk even if I do get my ankle free. I lie still and close my eyes and seriously consider the idea of just lying here and waiting until I'm dead.

After a long time, a nudge on my ankle sends a jolt through me. I try to sit up in a panic, but my broken arm screams at me and my head pounds and I go still again with a miserable groan. After a minute, I feel the nudge again, and this time I don't move. After a while, I shift around so I can see, and I don't know _what_ to think when I see it's the dragon again, gnawing at the vine on my leg just like he'd done to the one on my wrist.

I don't know why this thing keeps helping me. I honestly don't care at this point, I just lie there and watch him.

At last, I'm free. Still broken and starving and exhausted, but not tied up anymore. The dragon edges up toward my face, hesitating whenever I shift away, but eventually he makes it up here and starts...licking at my face.

I groan in disgust and exasperation, moving my head back and forth, but the tongue follows me around, swiping at the cuts on my face. Bloodthirsty little monster. Though he seems almost businesslike about it, pausing every so often to cough out little tongues of flame. The first time he does it nearly spooks me out of my skin, but I stop caring when it becomes obvious that he's deliberately turning his face to the side every time so that I won't get burned.

"Just go away," I whisper. "Just leave me alone and let me die."

He doesn't, of course. He continues on down my neck, and then skips over my sleeve toward my left arm. "NO," I shout, heaving to try to dislodge him. " _No_ , don't _touch_ that, you little-!" My yelling scares him off temporarily, but of course he comes back. The second his tongue touches the broken skin, I scream so loudly that he leaps away again and stares at me as if I'm crazy. "It freaking HURTS!" I shout at him. "I'm _screaming_ because it _hurts_ , you understand that?!"

His shoulders are hunched, his wings and tail tucked in close as he whines a little and edges around toward my other side.

"Stay away from me, stay _away_ -"

He pounces, swipes his tongue over one of the cuts on my right arm, then leaps back before I can even yell at him. I still yell, in anger this time rather than pain, but he refuses to obey. After a minute, he takes a cautious step forward, then suddenly pounces again and pins my right arm down so he can determinedly lick my wounds.

"Get OFF me! Get OFF!" He's too high for my knees to reach, so before I can think better of it, I duck my head and _bite_ him.

He yelps in surprise, but of course I have stupid blunt human teeth and he's protected by dragon scales, so it's not like I can actually hurt him. He figures that out pretty quickly and ignores me, continuing to drink my blood. Finally I just give up and let him.

Except...I realize after watching him for a while that he's not actually drinking my blood. It looks more like he's...cleaning it off, not exactly happily, and I wonder if those little spats of flame are to get the taste out of his mouth. When I reach to touch one of the cleaned cuts (dislodging him in the process, since he'd stopped pinning my arm when I stopped struggling), I'm surprised at the flare of pain - when I take my finger away, the pain slowly fades and then goes back to being numb. All the cuts the dragon's cleaned don't hurt so much anymore.

The rest of me still freaking hurts, though, and I sigh when I decide that I really do need to do something about it. I draw my knife, ignoring the dragon when he leaps away in alarm, and struggle through the frustrating process of trying to cut strips from my tunic one-handed. After a while, the dragon creeps close and cautiously takes one of the half-cut strips in his mouth and pulls it taut, making it a little easier for me to cut.

He helps me cut my boots, too, until I can finally get the things off my feet. Both of my ankles are red, the left one swollen. I hiss in displeasure and wonder how the heck I'm going to wrap them up with only one hand. "...Hey, you." I lay one of the strips of cloth over my ankle. "Get over here."

I have to set aside my knife, softening my voice and cooing at him as if I'm coaxing a skittish cat, before he finally creeps close. I pluck him up, ignoring his panicked wriggling, and plop him down by my foot, trying to maneuver his paw onto the makeshift bandage with my fingers while still holding him down with my palm and wrist. I don't quite manage it and he dashes away, stopping at a safe distance to stare at me.

"I'm not gonna hurt you! Come _here_!" I have to coax again, longer this time, but _finally_ he comes crawling close, and this time when I grab him, he doesn't resist as much but he makes this sort of frightened, high-pitched whine as I drag him toward my foot. "I'm _not_ gonna _hurt_ you! _Hold_ this thing, okay? Right here."

He figures it out eventually. He presses his paw against the end of the bandage as I start wrapping, takes it away again when I flick my fingers at him, then holds the bandage again at the end so I can fasten it, watching very intently the whole time and often making an enthusiastic chittering noise.

"Okay. Now the other one."

After that's done, I suck in a breath and then lie down again and start struggling toward the arrow I can see nearby. Out of all the ones that got knocked out of my quiver and rolled down the hill with me, that one's the closest, and I need the straight shaft for what I'm about to do.

After a minute, the dragon trots over to the arrow, eyeing me cautiously the whole time, picks it up in his mouth, drops it beside my hand, then darts out of reach in case I mean to stab him with it.

I give a hollow laugh, touched despite everything. "Thanks, little buddy." I manage to remove the fletching and the arrowhead, cut some more strips out of my ruined tunic, then sit up and clutch my knife and take a deep breath.

Most of me is about as patched up as I can get. My headache has dulled, my cuts and scrapes and scratches have been cleaned with dragon spit, and my sprained ankles are wrapped. Now comes the hardest part. "Just do it, Toothless. Just _do_ it. Do it. Plunge on in, go, go, GO-"

I scream at the top of my lungs as I start setting the broken bone, partially because trying to yell as loud as I can is a tiny bit distracting, but also because obviously it _really hurts_. By the time I finally get the pieces in place as best I can, I no longer have the strength to scream and am now just sobbing. "C-Come...come here." I stretch my good arm desperately toward the dragon, I _need_ him, but he's freaking out, alternating between zipping around in panicked circles and freezing stock-still, staring at me with huge, horrified eyes. "Come HERE! Come HERE you little ratspawn, COME HERE!"

Of course that spooks him even more, so I give up briefly and close my eyes, still crying, too miserable to even wonder what I'm going to do next.

After a while, a gentle touch bumps my cheek, as if the dragon is nervously asking what's happening. I grab him and plunk him down beside my arm. He starts shivering, but doesn't flee. " _Hold_ this," I order. " _Hold_ it."

We've gotten the hang of it from when I had to bind my feet, except that this time I have to tie knots. It's tricky work trying to do it one-handed, and he watches my struggling fingers with great interest, but when I lean down to pull the first knot tight with my teeth, it startles him and he dashes away again. I curse and rage for a while in frustration, and I'm too worked up to put on my coaxing-a-skittish-kitty voice, but eventually he creeps back and doesn't run off this time and I manage to finish getting my arm splinted.

Then I collapse, completely exhausted. I feel so traumatized that I'm crying with no restraint like a child, not even resisting when the dragon starts cleaning the wound where the bone had protruded, though the pain twists my sobs back into screams.

When he's finally finished torturing me, he creeps back and drapes himself over my chest, thrumming in a soothing way and occasionally licking my neck. It's comforting to have him there, warm and distracting, and I curl my good arm around him to snuggle him even closer.

I must have dozed off, because I blink my eyes and find him standing up again, gently pawing my shoulder. When he sees I'm awake, he picks up something beside him and lays it on the ground in front of my face.

It's a raw fish. I can tell that it's been freshly caught, even though it's now got dirt sticking to it and a couple of flies have already started buzzing inquisitively around it. But he caught it for me just now, and it's disgusting but it's _food_ and even better, WATER, I'm dying of thirst and this thing is gross but so moist. I bite into it after only a little bit of hesitation. Ew ew ew but squishy, _water_ , I take another bite. I force myself to eat as much of it as I can, then lay my head down in exhaustion.

The dragon won't let me rest, though. He tries to squirm underneath me, and when he gets too close to my injured arm, it hurts and I shove him away. He huffs and tries it again, with the same result. He makes a frustrated warbling sound, then seizes a bit of my tunic pulls hard.

"What are you _doing_ , little guy? There's no way you can carry me anywhere."

Which seems to be his point. After pulling at me without much result, he stares hard into my eyes as if trying to communicate with me through sheer force of will, then starts crawling under me again.

I sigh and let him. He positions himself on my left side close to my shoulder, then barks and heaves forward, as if trying to move me.

He _is_ trying to move me. He can't do it without help, I have to do my share and I don't want to because it means I have to turn over and crawl on my knees because my feet are useless and all of that will still _hurt_ , but I look down to where he's looking and see a stream in the valley at the bottom of the hill.

He wants to get me to water. He wants to get me to water and he's so sweet but it's _so far away_ and I'm more than half-dead, I can't do it, I can't do it...

I do it. Well, _we_ do it, him under my chest heaving me forward as best he can, me trying to help him by clawing my way along with my good hand and pushing with my knees and occasionally my less injured right foot, which is bare now because I never put back on the slashed remains of my boot, which is now too far away to retrieve. It takes _hours_ , with a lot of rest breaks and short naps and raw fish in between, but finally he gets me down to the stream. I gulp down a couple of mouthfuls of water and then pass out.

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: I looked up compound fractures for this chapter. There's probably a good chance that Toothless in those conditions might have died with an injury like that, but it _might_ be _possible_ that he could have survived without losing the whole arm, especially with Hiccup there to disinfect it with his magical dragon spit. I hope.

Apologies for forgetting to clarify about dragon breeds! (I have so very little interest in reading descriptions that I often forgot to write them in my own stories. X'''D) This fic does not have distinct dragon breeds the way canon does. Like human beings, all the dragons in this story just look like general dragons with some individual/personal identifiers (such as scale color, size, minor quirks with things like talon shape, etc.). I myself don't have a very clear picture in my head about what they look like (because I don't caaaaaare, sorry...! X'''D), so feel free to imagine them however you like outside of the few physical descriptors that _are_ mentioned! :'D

 **So far, the HiccTooth transformation swap fic has been getting the most votes.** I've typed most of it, but it needs a lot more editing than usual. Assuming I can get that done fairly quickly, **would you guys prefer that I post it in the "Proper Appreciation (and other stories)" series (that's what I'm leaning toward), or by itself as a new story?** (I don't like starting new stories/series, because they almost always end up connecting to previously-posted stuff, and everything gets so dang MESSY! But all the "Proper Appreciation (and other stories)" fics so far pretty much fit with canon. Although the transformation fic is mostly canon-based as well, it has, by necessity, a supernatural element that would never happen in canon, so I'm not sure how I should post the story on AO3 and FFN. [...Please use my fanfiction indexes. That is the only place on the Internet where you're going to find an ORGANIZED and 100% complete list of my posted fanfiction; there is no way to keep my writing organized very well on AO3, DevArt, and especially FFN. X''''D])

Also, requests are open until the end of December, particularly holiday-themed ones! Ideally, I'd like to do Christmas gifts for my friends and/or do Christmas specials for my readers in general, but I've failed at both in the past, so this time it's just... Ask me for whatever you want (even if it's something you've asked for in the past), and if I'm capable of writing it, I'll see how many I can get done before Christmas!


	4. Book 1, chapter 3

_**To Put It In Perspective: The Queen Falls**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 3 (rough draft)**

I don't know how long I slept, but I do know that it's morning again. The dragon is licking industriously at my knees, cleaning the blood and dirt off them from our horrible trek down the hillside, because my leggings naturally got torn along the way. "Good morning," I say dully.

The dragon's head pops up, he coughs flame to clean his mouth, makes this happy-sounding chirp, then swarms up my body and nuzzles my face, purring loudly.

"Yeah, yeah, good to see you, too..."

He catches some fish for my breakfast, and after a lot of trial and error, I _finally_ manage to convince him to bring me a decent pile of wood and start a fire. He watches, seeming a little incredulous, as I cook my fish and then bite into it. "Soooooooo...goooooood...ohhhhhhh I'm so hungry, I'm so hungry I'm _so_ \- _hungry_...!"

It would be a beautiful morning if everything else wasn't so horrible. I lie there vaguely enjoying it as best I can, while the dragon - I really ought to name him - putters around, taking care of me. Why in the _world_ is a dragon waiting hand and foot on an injured human? Is there something wrong with this dragon, that he wouldn't recognize me as his enemy? But...he'd been afraid of me at first, he _knows_ I could hurt him, yet for some insane reason he's decided to just OVERLOOK that and be my friend and caretaker instead...

The dragon suddenly goes rigid, staring up with wide, dismayed eyes.

"What?! What is it?!" I can't see or sense any danger, but the dragon suddenly dives into a flurry of activity. He races back and forth, bringing me extra firewood and then all the arrows he could find scattered on the hillside, then he lunges at me and licks practically my entire body, also rubbing his own body against mine in a frantic way. As soon as he's done with that, he makes a sort of boundary around me with flame and urine and claw marks scored into the ground.

Finally he stops, stares at me for a minute with a helpless look, then jumps into the air and flies away.

O-kay. That was weird.

I don't have anything else to do except lie here and be in pain, so I close my eyes and try to doze off.

Throughout the day, animals sometimes wander over to the stream. The ones who come closest to me occasionally peer at me, but they inevitably turn away after sniffing at the dragon's boundary line.

The thing really is like a charmed circle, it even turns away a _boar_. The creature bristles upon seeing me, growling, and I grip my knife. But when she gets closer, she pauses at the scent line, sniffing at it and then growling again in an undecided sort of way.

"That's right - that's _right_ , sow. If you try to hurt me, my big scary dragon guardian will swoop down and chomp off your head and fry your carcass to a crisp! A CRISP, you hear me?!"

She growls one last time, then turns away and heads downriver. Relieved and amazed, I release the breath I'd been holding and slacken my grip on my weapon. "Thanks, little dragon...I seriously have to name you now..." I decide on the name 'Hiccup,' because he's a runt but also because he's such a bizarre dragon. A little hiccup in the proper order of things that nevertheless has made all the difference to me.

o.o.o.o.o

The young dragon flew as swiftly as he could, for he had been called back to the nest and he did not want any of his flockmates to come looking for him and discover his new secret. He did have to spend a few precious seconds rolling in stripmud, to disguise the scents of the human clinging to his scales. The dragon came to a landing by the pits, where he was briefly scolded for taking so long to respond to the summons.

The alpha had gone with his strongest flocklings on yet another search for the humans' home. The beta had been left behind to train the group of fledglings in fighting humans. For that purpose, several humans had been captured alive from the most recent raid and preserved, thrown into pits too deep for them to escape, kept alive by the fish and water gourds thrown down to them.

The fledglings' first opponent was to be the stocky, more powerful female. As the beta paused beside her pit to check on her, two of the other fledglings bit the runt, the yellow male playfully, the brown more forcefully in a show of dominance. The runt didn't bother to resist, though his tail twitched with resentment as he lay sprawled under the brown's paws, and an almost soundless growl vibrated in his throat. The large tan male paced apprehensively at the prospect of facing a human in battle; the golden female was sharpening her claws.

The beta barked at the fledglings to follow, and they descended.

The warrior woman, whose name was Meatlug, was a gentle soul who loved both human children and baby animals. Unfortunately, years of war and cruelty had worn her down, and the distress and indignity of this new captivity were an added burden. As soon as she saw the dragons, she seized her bludgeon and shield (the dragons allowed their captives to keep their weapons and defenses, for the fledglings must learn how to deal with both), and let out a fearsome war cry.

Nearly all the fledglings yipped in alarm and scattered. Only the golden female charged ahead with an answering battle cry of her own. Meatlug dodged aside and swiped with her weapon; the gold gracefully dodged aside as well. She aimed for a bite on the woman's thigh, but had to veer sharply upward at the last moment in order to avoid colliding with the shield as it swung.

Meatlug was a powerful fighter quite capable of handling six inexperienced and mostly unmotivated fledglings, especially when their adult teacher hovered almost complacently in the background.

She first tried to go after the largest fledgling, the one she assumed to be the most serious threat, but the tan dragon turned out to be the most cowardly of the lot. He fled full tilt before her. His high-pitched shrieks, like those of a frightened newborn hatchling, moved her despite herself, so she cursed herself for a soft-hearted fool and turned away to the pair who seemed to work most closely in tandem.

The yellow clutchmates were fighting _each other_ , madly snapping and scratching and screeching as if determined to rip out each other's throats. Obviously no threat at all. Meatlug shook her head in incredulous disgust and whirled to look for a more threatening - _any_ threatening - target. Her weapon, whipping in an arc with the speed of her turn, narrowly missed the tentatively approaching runt, who squealed and darted back into hiding. Meatlug hadn't even noticed him.

The beta finally barked out some instructions, and the gold instantly began to make a noise almost inaudible to human hearing. By instinct, she got it perfectly on the first try, the exact pitch to buzz in Meatlug's ears and disorient her. The woman cried out in dismay and nearly dropped her weapon, frantically rubbing at her ear with her arm in a vain attempt to stop the literally headache-inducing noise. The other fledglings, encouraged by the gold's success, started making the noise as well, though it took them more than one try to get it right.

Meatlug fled into a corner of the pit, wailing in horror and fear and frustration. "Stop it! STOP IT! We raid and steal but we don't _torture_ you!" She recovered as the fledglings stopped, listening to more instructions from their teacher. Quietly, Meatlug tried to sneak around the back of the group, correctly anticipating that the beta would not give her away and spoil the lesson. Then she charged at the brown fledgling with her bludgeon raised.

The brown didn't even see her coming. He was trying to flirt with the extremely disinterested gold, crooning and unsuccessfully attempting to twine his tail with hers. The gold abruptly dodged away, incidentally kicking him aside in the process, which was what saved him from the heavy blow of the human weapon. He shrieked and fled completely out of the pit.

The gold happen to land near the hiding place of the runt, who cautiously crept out and warbled at her. Despite both the hazardous setting and the gold's clear disinterest in courtship, she was an extremely attractive female, and the young males couldn't help themselves from trying to court her anyway. The runt was no exception, though he at least had the intelligence and self control to avoid a counterproductive attempt at a tail-twine.

The gold dodged again. The runt was too preoccupied to notice Meatlug until the last second. He darted away in a panic, and she growled absent-mindedly at her missed shot but couldn't help fixating on him. He was so _tiny_ , and...cute. She'd rarely ever seen dragon hatchlings because they were so well-hidden, but she was still pretty sure that she found them as adorable as she couldn't help finding all baby creatures. This dragon wasn't a baby, but he might as well have been, as far as size went. Her heart fluttered in excited admiration even as her hand tightened on her weapon.

 _'I don't have to kill the poor thing... He's not nasty like that gold, I just have to feint a bit and he'll scurry off, aaaahhhh he's so cute...'_ He'd fled into a corner, crouched and staring up at her advance with terrified green eyes. She raised her weapon, and he immediately compacted into a self-defensive ball with his head tucked. He wasn't going to flee after all, she didn't know if she could divert her swing in time-

The beta seized her from behind and threw her to the ground. Meatlug gasped and scrabbled for her fallen weapon, but by the time she'd leaped to her feet with her shield and bludgeon raised, all six remaining dragons were flying away out of the pit. She stared after them, then dropped her weapons and miserably curled up by the wall.

Above, the beta grumbled at the group of weary fledglings, then nosed at the runt to make sure that the alpha's only offspring was all right. The little dragon's wings were drooping, but he was uninjured. As soon as the beta trundled off to take care of some other dragon business, the runt watched the yellow clutchmates fighting and the large tan peering interestedly into one of the dragon pits and the gold hissing at the brown as he attempted to court her again. The runt left while they were all preoccupied, thinking hard.

 _His_ human, whom he had named Survivor, was a fearsome fighter as well. _His_ human was tough enough to survive horrible injuries and intelligent enough to treat those injuries with so little help, but also kind enough to spare the life of an enemy who had lain helpless under his paw. Survivor was not a monster. He could be scary, but he wasn't a monster. In any case, the little dragon's own flockmates could be quite scary to their enemies as well, and of course _they_ weren't monsters. The little dragon was sure that something was wrong somewhere.

But right now he didn't have time to think about that, right now poor Survivor was alone and hurting and unsafe and probably hungry. It was all the dragon's fault that this interesting not-monster human had gotten hurt, so now it was the dragon's responsibility to take care of Survivor until Survivor could take care of himself again. It never occurred to the dragon that a healed Survivor might return to his human pack and go right back to hurting and stealing from the dragons.

o.o.o.o.o

I'm happier than I expected to see Hiccup again, especially because he zooms up to me looking frantic, as if he was worried about me. He licks me for a while as if trying to reassure himself that I'm all right. "I'm okay, little guy," I croon at him. "Were you worried about me~? I'm okay, I'm okay~" I caress his head and then scratch between his wings, smiling when he shivers a little in pleasure. "You like that, huh?"

He catches some more fish for me, and helps me scoot over to a rock big enough for me to sit up and lean on. After lunch, he starts scratching in the dirt, long squiggles as if he's doodling. After watching him for a while, I pick up a stick and start scratching in the dirt, too. _"Hiccup the dragon,"_ I write. He stares, his wings flared high and his tail waving back and forth in curiosity. "See? That's your name, Hiccup."

He starts sniffing at the words, and as he walks, his tail swipes over the 'R' in 'dragon.'

"Oi!"

He yelps and stares at me, cringing a little as if I'm scolding him. Which I kind of am.

"Don't scuff out the letters, silly!"

Cautiously, he takes a few more steps, and his tail smears the 'A.'

"OI."

I swear, the way he takes another step and deliberately smudges the 'G' is _experimental_.

" _Do not_ scuff the letters, the whole point of me writing them is so that you can _read them_!"

This time, when he takes another experimental step, he holds his tail high enough that it doesn't touch the ground anymore.

" _There_! There, you got it. No scuffing the letters of super-important messages, all right?"

He chirps at me and then goes back to sniffing all around the words, careful hold his tail high and step delicately with his paws. I don't think he notices that he's working his way closer toward me, because he jerks back when he bumps into me and stares up at me with wide eyes. I guess I _am_ still a human warrior, and he _is_ still a tiny dragon. Despite how amazingly well we've been getting along so far, he still has cause to be nerv-

He slowly lies down and lifts his paws out of the way, leaving his belly completely exposed to me.

...I'm pretty sure this is a huge show of trust. Even after how well we've been getting along, he's still been understandably nervous and hesitant at times. But now it's like he's saying that he fully surrenders, that he's so deep into this that there's no point in looking back, he is trusting himself to my mercy...

I lay my palm against his soft, warm underside, and stroke gently. I will not abuse his trust. For so long my soul has died inside me and I've longed for a different life, and now _this is different_ and I want this and yes, Hiccup, yes, you marvelous creature, I will take this road with you and see where it leads.

A slight tremor runs through him at my initial touch, but he doesn't pull away, and after a moment he curves his neck so he can lick my hand as I pet him.

"You're sooooo cute. I think I'm in love with you," I croon playfully.

He croons back at me in response.

The rest of the afternoon passes by slowly but fairly enjoyably. I discover that dragons are ticklish while I'm scratching between Hiccup's wings and then search for other sweet spots - my fingers dribbling across his stomach make him squawk and jerk away, then cringe sheepishly as if he hadn't anticipated his own reaction. A little while later, I manage to catch him and tickle him deliberately. He shrieks and squirms and manages to escape, then gives me an injured look as I laugh at him.

A little later, I giggle impulsively at the sensation of him scrabbling over my stomach. "Don't do that!" He gives me this horribly thoughtful look, and I realize that he's just recognized his chance to retaliate. "No, _no_ , don't even think about it- AAAAAHHHHHHAHAHAHA, _NO_ , EVIL LITTLE, HAH, STOOOOPPP, HAHAHAHAHA...!"

 _To be continued..._


	5. Book 1, chapter 4

_**To Put It In Perspective: The Queen Falls**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 4 (rough draft)**

A/N: This chapter is short, and the next one is even shorter, but that's because the "Dragon's Den" segment was so long.

o.o.o

The diet of endless fish gets old pretty quickly. It takes me a few days to make Hiccup understand what I want, but when he finally figures it out, he's happy to start bringing me squirrels and mice and stuff to cook, and one time, _berries_. Sugar tastes _so good_ when you've been living on nothing but meat for so long. After that, he starts bringing me all sorts of random stuff to see what I enjoy eating and what I turn up my nose at. Or avoid like the plague, such as the poison ivy that was once included among his offerings.

It's incredibly boring to sit on my butt for days, waiting to heal (not as boring as I expected with Hiccup to entertain me, but still), so I'm overjoyed when my right ankle finally stops hurting enough for me to hobble on. At first, I just wander in random directions, with Hiccup fluttering around me anxiously or riding on my shoulders. (That's pretty much His Spot now. He's made it a habit to crouch or lounge there, with his tail draped across my neck for balance. For a while, it amuses me more than it should that I can hold out my good arm for him to launch from and land on like he's a trained falcon.)

Later, I get more purposeful about exploring the valley, finding the easiest places where I can climb out of it after fully recovering. Not that I can actually think of anywhere to go... I wouldn't exactly be welcome at the dragons' nest, and the last place I want to go is the queen's palace. Might as well just stay here with my new adorable little friend.

I keep busy with any useful projects I can think of, like building a shelter and collecting stacks of firewood and making new weapons just for the heck of it and attempting to mend my ripped-up clothes with one hand (I still have a couple of needles in my survival pouch, and after the thread runs out, I start reusing unraveled threads from less important parts of my clothing). When I get well enough to start hunting for myself again, I start taking down enough furry animals that I can use to make warmer winter clothes.

My arm eventually heals as much as it's ever going to, but it's never going to be the same again. Alone in dire circumstances, I wasn't able to set the broken bone perfectly. The dull ache beneath the scar where the break didn't heal very well is almost always there, though its intensity varies. Sometimes I'm able to forget about it completely when I'm really distracted or concentrating deeply.

Worse than the ache, though, is the fact that no matter how much I work my hand to try to strengthen it, it's still weak and my fingers can't grasp very well anymore. The loss of mobility is a heavy blow, but the fact that I no longer have to follow the queen's orders kind of makes up for it. Another one of my projects is teaching myself how to shoot as well as I used to, even with a defective hand.

Hiccup starts his own project after my arm heals. One day, he drags a collection of vines and bloodstained clothes (probably from my fallen fellow solders...) up to me. Then he climbs onto my shoulder and bounces until I finally figure out that he wants me to lie down on my stomach. "Oooo-kay."

When I obey, he starts arranging the clothes around me, tugging at them fussily with his teeth until they are in whatever shape he wants. Then he barks until I sit up, and indicates where he wants me to cut the fabric. (Hiccup, the clever little thing, has figured out how to ask me to cut things for him. Also to do knots, by flexing his paw over whatever part of a vine or rope he wants me to tie or untie.) Next comes a lot of fussiness and commands that I soon get bored with - Hiccup has to bribe me with grapes so I'll hold still long enough for him to make more adjustments.

After a day or two of this, I realize that Hiccup is trying to make me a set of wings. The swaths of cloth tied to my arms are roughly in the shape of dragon wings. "Hiccup...buddy..."

Of course he doesn't listen to me. I have to jump off a high overhang and land in the river below about three times before I finally convince him that the wings don't work, but even then, he just comes back the next day with a new design.

I'm sprawled in the grass yet again, sensing Hiccup scrabbling around on my back with yet more vines, idly thinking that Hiccup is probably the only dragon in the world who'd try to _make_ things. Thinking that he sometimes acts more like a human than a dragon. Suddenly realizing that only a dragon who thinks like a human would think to assemble a trap and knock a human into it and capture him and make him easy for a tiny runt to kill.

Hiccup senses my sudden rigidity. He barks at me inquisitively, and when he climbs down to investigate, he meets my horrified eyes and sees the way I'm cringing away from him, sheltering my ruined arm from him. Understanding breaks across his expression and he hunches down miserably in the grass like he's completely ashamed of himself.

Hiccup was the one who maimed me. The knowledge _hurts_. I love him by now, but to find out what he did to me, he...he...

He's shivering, staring at me like he's begging me to forgive him.

That's when I realize that, yes, okay, Hiccup is the one who caught me and hurt me, but he's also the one who, in a way, saved me. (How long has it been now since I've had to endure the queen's voice, or see her ugly face? _Months_. I hope I _never_ have to see her again.) Any fool can see that he regrets what he did, and-

 _He's trying to fix me._ The poor thing is trying to _fix_ me, as if replacing my damaged arm with flight will erase his guilt and make him worthy to be my friend. (Sometimes I catch myself assuming stuff about his thoughts like that, but then I always feel like I assumed _right_ , you know? I feel like I know him so well that I _can_ read his mind sometimes.)

I wrap my good arm around him and drag him into a hug, then wrap my bad arm around him for good measure. "Stop that," I tell him. "It's okay, you didn't mean it, I love you. We'd never have been friends if you hadn't done it." He licks my neck and whines as if grieving, and I have to comfort him for a long time before he finally drags himself out of my arms and looks more subdued than beaten.

But then he goes right back to the wings, ignoring me when I protest. I lose count of the number of times he makes me jump off that overhang until I finally rip off the wings and scoop him up like a misbehaving cat and yell in his face, "NO! _No_ more pointless experiments, I am _not_ going to fly, Hiccup! I _can't_ fly, and you know what, it doesn't _matter_. It's _okay_. I can still love you even with a bad arm and no wings, okay? And you'd _better_ still love me whether I can fly or not, you understand me, lizard?"

The next time he tries to make me jump, I ignore him. When he persists, I distract him or avoid him however way I can: I tickle him and carry him around on his back like a human baby and run away and scratch the sweet spot between his wings until he finally gives up.

I'm happy living here in the middle of nowhere with him. And I _know_ he's happy with me. His life in the nest must be difficult, sometimes he's so depressed and sometimes physically _hurt_ that he'll come _walking_ to join me in the valley instead of flying, his head hanging and his tail and wings dragging, poor little miserable thing. But he always, always cheers up when he's with me. We'll wrestle like kids and tease each other and feed each other and play together and often sleep snuggled close together. He's not just a pet or even a friend, he's like...he's like a brother, my twin brother, even though I'm a human and he's a dragon. He _feels_ like my twin. I love him so, so, so much.

o.o.o.o.o

The little dragon learned much from the human he had befriended. For example, on one of the occasions when he brought a variety of plants for his human (renamed Friend) to try, he found that there was a particular plant which Friend not only rejected, but squawked and leaped away from as if it was poisonous. The dragon brought a few leaves of it to the next training session, and was amazed to see that it had a similar effect on the pair of humans he had to face in the pits - both of them shied away from him, and outright fled when he flew at them with the poison ivy brandished in his mouth. It was a useful thing to know, and had the bonus effect of impressing his teacher and agemates.

Then there was the fruit, which had the opposite effect on the humans. The warrior Meatlug actually stopped charging at him when he showed her an apple, and ceased attacking him altogether in favor of devouring the fruit when he let her have it. The other humans were the same. The woman named Stormfly and the twins, Barf and Belch, all excitedly accepted the runt's offers of fruit and never seriously raised a hand against him afterward.

The runt was also gratified to find that humans were apparently even more ticklish than he was. He was able to save Stormfly some pain when he incapacitated her into a helpless heap of giggles before the gold fledgling could rake a claw across her face and possibly blind her.

It all gave the runt the idea that perhaps Friend wasn't just an anomaly. Perhaps _all_ humans weren't automatically monsters, perhaps all or at least some of them had the potential for goodness inside them. If so, then the way the dragons were keeping these creatures captive was cruel, and the problem started bothering the runt more and more as time went on...

What also disturbed him greatly was the growing knowledge that his human was permanently damaged. Friend's hindpaws eventually healed, and his foreleg improved, but when the runt laid himself across the human's scarred limb, he could sense that the bone hadn't healed completely straight. He watched his human (renamed again to 'Companion') forcing the paw through various movements, and eventually realized that the beautiful agile human paw had forever lost its full strength and mobility. The runt was distressed by the knowledge that he had caused such harm to the person he now loved most, and one day it occurred to him that if he could somehow give wings to his beloved and teach him to fly, perhaps it would compensate for the other loss.

The plan hadn't worked. It hadn't worked, Companion's paw was damaged forever and now he would never, ever fly, either. Yet instead of grieving, he comforted the _dragon_ , the one who had hurt him in the first place. _"I love you, your place is here with me, I am happy here with you."_

The dragon couldn't understand those strange chittering human noises that Companion made at him, but it didn't matter, they could understand each other anyway. They had learned to read each other's tone and body language and intent and a few often-used sounds, they understood each other more than any other being, they might as well have been clutchmates.

 _"You are my most precious treasure,"_ the dragon told his companion, and Companion affectionately warbled back. The dragon wondered if they had become two halves now, the closest relationship two dragons could form. It felt like it sometimes. So far, their secret life had been idyllic, untroubled by any real problems, but that couldn't last forever. Whenever this respite ended and they survived their first true challenge together, the young dragon would know for sure.

 _To be continued..._


	6. Book 1, chapter 5

_**To Put It In Perspective: The Queen Falls**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 5 (rough draft)**

A/N: Really short chapter, sorry. The next one's long.

o.o.o

After all this time in isolation, the first humans I see are children. They're not from the palace and they don't even speak my language; they must be from a different territory, perhaps travelers. They come tumbling out of the woods one afternoon while Hiccup and I are eating lunch. They freeze for a moment when they see us, then the oldest girl babbles to her younger siblings and they come romping toward us.

Hiccup creeps up to my shoulders and huddles there nervously, and I remember that he probably hasn't had any positive interaction with any human besides me.

The little boy annoys me by making a snatch for my food without even glancing at me for permission. I grab his hand before he can actually take hold of anything. "ABSOLUTELY NOT."

While I'm distracted, his little sister grabs one of the fish from the fire and backs away with a stupid smug smile on her face. The oldest girl scolds her for stealing food- No, the girl snatches it out of her sister's hand, she wasn't scolding her for stealing, the little thief was scolding her thief sister for not sharing loot!

As I'm watching the greedy girls incredulously, the boy makes another snatch at the slab of bark I use as a plate, and this time he manages to close his hand on a peach. I snatch it right back out of his hand and snarl at him like a dragon.

The brat snarls back, then lunges at the peach. I love the flabbergasted look on his face when I knock him back, very easily despite staying seated and having to use my left arm. (It twinges in protest at the movement, but it's not completely useless.) I take a big fat bite of the peach, sniggering at the brat as I do so, taunting him with the sound of my teeth slicing into sweet flesh and the sight of juice trickling down my chin. "Mmmmm," I say through a full mouth. "Soooo delicious, and _all mine_."

Looking infuriated now, the boy grabs a stick and runs at me, yelling and waving his little weapon. Without even bothering to get to my feet or put down the peach, I disarm him, then smack the stick across his bottom. He stares at me, his lower lip starting to tremble as if he thinks he can make me feel sorry for him. I don't, though - these kids are a little grubby, but not too much; their clothes are old and faded, but carefully patched. They've most likely got parents nearby to look after them, they don't need my pity.

They get Hiccup's, though. My silly, soft-hearted little dragon croons in a soothing way as he crawls down my arm, hops to the ground, and approaches the kids.

The younger ones shy away at first, but the older one looks fascinated. She reaches out to Hiccup and he nuzzles her hand, purring. Soon both girls are cooing at him as if he's an adorable infant, while their brother happily steals the rest of Hiccup's meal and starts toasting it over the fire. Hiccup doesn't seem to mind at all, he _loves_ the attention and affection and caresses.

"All four of you are doofs," I mutter, curling my arm protectively around the rest of my own meal.

o.o.o

By now, Meatlug loved the little runt, he was the only good thing about her life. He was the only one of the fledglings who never actually attacked her except with half-hearted feints, and he brought _fruit_. And edible _plants_. And sometimes _cooked red meat_. Not openly, but she found that if she snatched him and made a show of grappling with him (even his struggling seemed half-hearted, as if he knew perfectly well that she didn't intend to hurt him), he'd leave the food in her hands after he 'escaped.'

It was _so good_ to have some variation in her diet, _so good_ to have an occasional taste of sweetness, and...perhaps even better, to be able to look into the eyes of one creature in this whole cursed nest and see what she thought could be compassion instead of hatred.

The other prisoners thought the same. Conversations were tiring because they had to yell to make themselves heard, but it was the only real company they had. During those long hours when there was nothing else to do, they'd bellow back and forth between the pits, and strain to hear the replies of their fellow captives.

Stormfly loved the runt like Meatlug did. The twins had more reservations, but had grudgingly forgiven the little dragon for apparently brandishing poison ivy at them the first time they'd seen him. Hookfang, the only one who still hadn't faced the fledglings in battle, ranted and raged about how it wasn't FAIR and he was so BORED and when was HE going to get to fight some dragons, or get something to eat that wasn't freaking FISH; and on and on, so that Meatlug almost lost her temper and screamed at him that whatever the dragons had planned for him was probably the worst, if they were keeping him out of action for so long.

As far as the dragons were concerned, the runt's status had changed within a matter of days. To his own astonishment, he went from being the lowest-ranked fledgling to being deferred to by all of them except the proud, increasingly angry gold. Dragons who had once merely acknowledged him as their alpha's offspring now greeted him enthusiastically, without demanding any displays of submission. Although he would once have delighted in the attention, it now dismayed him. It was no longer an easy matter for him to sneak away to his beloved human, since his presence and absences were noticed more.

This was how matters stood when the alpha returned home the first time, discouraged by his lack of success. The humans could be tracked up to a certain point, but when they reached the boundaries of their territory, it was like a fog fell upon the minds of the dragons, clouding and disorienting them, so that they could not remember where they were or what their purpose was. By the time they wandered far enough away to regain their senses, the humans would be long gone.

The alpha knew that if they just had _something_ inside that territory to focus on, something to guide them through the fog and meet them on the other side... But what could they possibly attach themselves to within that mysterious darkness, where only monsters and evil dwelt?

The alpha was astounded to greet his offspring and read the wealth of new scents on him. On top of the disgusting scent of stripmud (the runt made a habit of rolling in it every time he returned to the nest, in order to mask the scents his human left on him), there were signs of respect paid to him by most of the flock. The alpha was delighted to learn that his offspring, a mere runt, had nevertheless successfully managed to outmatch all his agemates in fighting humans, _including_ the gold female who was so strong and promising.

 _"I love you,"_ the alpha crooned, nuzzling his child.

 _"Love you too..."_ the runt nuzzled back, trying hard not to hunch down in guilt. It gave him a very strange feeling, trying to 'deceive,' but he _had_ to protect his human and pretend that all was well.

The only other unhappy dragon was the gold fledgling. She was _outraged_ that the runt now outranked her, and frustrated that he kept besting her even though she _knew_ she was still the better fighter. She refused to mark him with respect, so she avoided him entirely except when she stalked him, trying to figure out where he kept disappearing to for so long.

The few times she caught him coming back, she tried to get close enough to catch his scents without him noticing her, but she was never able to manage it before he rolled in stripmud and erased all evidence of his activities. He was _concealing_. That was _wrong_. For all she knew, he could be putting the flock in danger, but because of his concealment from his own flockmates, none of them would know until it was too late!

The gold persisted. At long last, the day came when she successfully tracked the runt to his hiding place, and saw the thing he had been keeping secret for so long.

 _To be continued..._


	7. Book 1, chapter 6

_**To Put It In Perspective: The Queen Falls**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 6 (rough draft)**

I hear something. Or maybe I just sense it; in any case, I get the strong feeling that I need to return to camp _now_. I yank my bag closed and hurry back towards home, and then my heart seems to jump into my throat when I hear the sound of Hiccup's distressed cries. Something's _wrong_.

I burst through the trees just in time to see _another dragon_ , a gold female fledgling _bigger than my Hiccup_ , standing over him with her paw planted on his squirming body as she roars in his face.

 _No_. How _dare_ you, not _my_ Hiccup, you are going DOWN, dragon, I will bury this knife in your THROAT.

She sees me in an instant and leaps to meet me; both of us are bellowing war cries, I don't have a shield but I haven't forgotten how to evade dragonfire, I dodge roll and lunge at her-

HICCUP WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

He's suddenly between us, a flying tiny adorable bundle of flashing fangs and whipping wings and loud cries that I know are his way of saying _"Stop stop stop stop stop!"_

The gold and I can't get at each other with him between us. Seeing me halt, Hiccup whirls and croons at the gold beseechingly, as she stares at him in disbelief. Then he swarms up my body and perches on my shoulder, nuzzling my throat and then chirping hopefully.

The gold runs away.

I can _feel_ Hiccup drooping on my shoulder. Then he yelps and clings as I chase after the gold, not really having a plan in mind but wanting to punish her for threatening my Hiccup, and also thinking vaguely that I probably shouldn't let her make it back to the nest and warn the flock that Hiccup's been hiding a human in the valley for months.

She's just leaped into the air. I have to be quick - I've trained hard enough with my weakened arm to regain my accuracy (mostly), but I still take longer to shoot than I used to. I send an arrow whizzing just ahead of the gold to get her attention. She whirls and flies at me almost without pause.

It's _glorious_ , I forgot what it's like to fight with someone who can provide a challenge. I mean, I don't like having to fight for my life or anything, but I've always been a warrior and I enjoy _sparring_ , and a fight with a single, half-grown, skilled-for-her-age dragon is a good substitute.

Hiccup hates it, though, and finally manages to get between us again. He snarls and flaps his wings and lashes his tail, spinning in a frustrated circle. He doesn't want us to hurt each other. I'm his best friend and this fledgling is his flockmate, he doesn't like to see us fight. But what else am I supposed to do, Hiccup?! I can't just-

There's a ship. I'm so shocked to see it that I forget to keep paying attention both to my dragon and to the other fledgling. I stare out at the ship, no longer used to seeing such familiar human things. It's like finding myself in a dream.

Hiccup yips at me worriedly, and the gold makes a cautious growling sound. I scoop Hiccup onto my shoulders and start making my way down to the sand where the ship is anchored.

There's no one on board. They're all off raiding, and whoever was left behind to watch the ship must have gotten bored and wandered off. There's no one to stop me as I climb down into the hold, take the key ring off its hook on the wall, and unlock the nearest chest.

Treasure gleams inside. Both Hiccup and the gold screech in astonishment, making me laugh. The female dragon climbs right into the chest and snuggles down into the pile of gold inside as if it's a bed. I can feel Hiccup trembling with excitement on my shoulders. I unlock another chest and turn it onto its side, scattering gems across the floor. Hiccup tiptoes down my arm, settles almost gingerly on top of a ruby more than half his size, then cheeps at me in utter delight.

I'm smiling so hard my cheeks ache a little, but at the same time I feel like weeping. They need this, their whole flock _needs this_. The female, as she soaks up the virtue in the gold, is purring in contentment as if her stomach is finally full after years of malnourishment. Hiccup's delighted cheeping has somehow changed and now sounds like crying. This treasure _belongs to them_ , my people are thieves and murderers. I can't be content with just escaping the queen. I need to figure out how to _stop this_ for good.

A crash outside startles all three of us. I hadn't been paying attention to anything beyond the dragons, so I'd missed the sound of approaching voices, but now the noises of the returning raiding party are unmistakable. Someone's getting chewed out, probably the guard who deserted his post; warriors are calling back and forth as they start readying the ship to sail; there's a dragging sound of heavy chests-

They're going to bring their loot down here any minute now.

I snatch Hiccup and deposit him onto my shoulders, then wrap my arm around the frightened, bristling, growling gold fledgling and start hauling her away. I manage to shove her behind a pile of crates in a corner and crouch down beside her just as the first pair of boots starts descending the steps.

There's complaining and cursing, especially when they see the opened chests and spilled gems. Hiccup slithers into my tunic, which he does whenever he's upset and wants the comfort of my skin and my heartbeat. He and the gold are both shivering now. I keep my arm around the female and use the other hand to stroke the lump in my tunic, trying to soothe the dragons so they'll stay quiet.

There's no chance to escape the ship before it sets sail. Now we're stuck, a runaway human and two freaking _dragons_ , trapped on a raiding ship that's heading into the heart of the queen's territory. No dragon has made it past the barrier before. I remember when Rainbow Cleaver tried to escape the palace; I saw what _she_ did to Rainbow Cleaver when my clanswoman was caught, and I'm terrified about how the queen will punish me when she realizes that I'm back within her grasp...

After the warriors are all back on deck and we've set sail and the hold has been quiet for a while, I cautiously edge out of my hiding place, trying to shush Hiccup's frightened whimpers. Still holding him in my tunic with one arm, I search until I finally find a cloak, which I manage to get on with one hand. Then, with great difficulty, I dig Hiccup out of my tunic. "Hey, buddy, I need to take my chances up on deck, okay? Maybe I can find a place for you two to fly off without being seen." I need to do this _soon_ , before we cross over into the queen's territory and the dragons are as trapped as I am.

I shoo the gold back behind the crates and plop Hiccup down beside her. " _Stay_. Okay? _Stay_. Stay _here_ , and _do not_ come out until I say you can."

Hiccup makes a sad warble at me. The gold narrows her eyes and growls.

"I mean it! STAY." Hoping that they'll obey, I stand up and draw the hood over my face and try to tug the edges of my sleeves over my hands. I'm the only one left of the Night Fury clan; if the others catch even a glimpse of my dark skin, they'll immediately know who I am.

I venture up on deck and manage to move around for a while without getting more than a few confused frowns about why I'm so heavily shrouded. Unfortunately, when I'm at the stern trying to figure out whether it's deserted enough for me to sneak the dragons up here and shove them into the sky, someone suddenly seizes my hood and jerks it back.

I whirl to resist, but there are two of them, a twin-pair, and they must have been anticipating my reaction. In the next second, both my arms are twisted behind my back, as another hand fisted in my hair yanks my head enough to completely expose my throat, against which a sharp blade is now resting.

"...Toothless," they realize.

I don't answer, because there's nothing to say.

They shout to the others, and soon I'm completely surrounded by my former comrades. The twins let me go, since I obviously can't escape now. I glare at the warriors, wondering hopelessly how many of them I can take down before they kill me.

Not many of the faces are angry, though. "Where have you been all this time, Toothless?!"

"She's been _thirsting for your blood_ , she'll eat you for sure when she sees you..."

"I thought you'd escaped, Toothless!"

"Did you bring any treasure?"

"Where'd you _come_ from?!"

I ignore all the questions and demand, "How far away are we from the boundary?"

"Real close, we ought to be hitting it any minute now."

I try to shove my way past them, but they hold me back, hands reaching out either in curiosity or in an automatic gesture to restrain me. "Let me go! I'd rather jump overboard than go back to _her_!"

"Wouldn't we all, lad..."

The barrier. We barely feel it, it's like passing through an unpleasant-smelling mist - but I hear a strange wail from the hold, then another, and I know it's affecting the dragons much worse.

"What was _that_?!"

I redouble my efforts and this time am able to break through, but it's too late, someone's hauling the gold fledgling up the stairs. He throws her to the deck, where she flops pitifully with unfocused eyes. His partner is carrying Hiccup, who's limp and feebly struggling.

"GIVE HIM TO ME!" I scream.

Everyone stares at me, startled at the strength of my outburst. I rush forward and snatch Hiccup into my arms. He scrabbles weakly and reorients himself in my grip, his face buried in my chest and his tail wrapped tightly around me and his wings plastered to his sides. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay, Hiccup, it's okay..." The female flounders toward me and stumbles against my legs, then sort of wraps herself around me as if trying to ground herself.

"...You have dragons, Toothless?"

I sigh deeply and stroke my hand over Hiccup's warm scales, comforting myself as much as him. "This one is very dear to me. The gold is his flockmate. Obviously I didn't mean for them to get caught up in this, but...if I can hide them, if I can keep _her_ from seeing them, please don't betray them? I can't...I can't save myself, but if I can save Hiccup, I just..."

No one really answers, but from the way they slowly disperse and stop paying attention to us, I know they'll at least passively cooperate as long as they themselves aren't endangered. It's a small mercy, but a welcome one. The rest of these young dragons' lives will probably be short and miserable. Even if they recover from the mental fog enough to stay clear of the palace, they'll still be trapped in this territory, forever cut off from their flock, slowly starving to death from lack of treasure. There is not a single speck of gold in this place that has not already been claimed for the queen's horde.

The thought makes me cry, and I pretty much spend the rest of my fully-conscious time on that voyage huddled together with the two dragons, grieving for them.

The closer we get to the palace, the more the queen's power starts to fog up my mind. First that cursed _buzzing_ , not a sound but a _feeling_ inside my head, jarring my thoughts as if it's trying to break them apart. Then the lethargy and confusion, and soon I'm going to be slumped in a drugged, drooling haze, if not marching around like a mindless zombie.

But...there's something different about this time. Hiccup is thrumming, and the constant sound of his fear and worry and desperation won't let the queen's buzzing make much headway. At one point, he lifts his head, his eyes mostly clear again, and studies me as I sit slumped and miserable against the side of the ship. Then he crawls up my shoulder and drapes himself around my neck. I can smell him, I can feel his warm, scaled hide against my bare skin, I can sense his pulse, and that thrumming never ceases although its tone changes with his mood. It...it's like all of it is a weight, Hiccup is anchoring me to him, saving me from losing my mind completely. My consciousness clings to him as if to a lifeline.

The others have mostly turned into zombies by now. When we dock the ship, they start unloading the chests of treasure in complete silence. I have just enough presence of mind to tug the cloak back over my skin; Hiccup slips back into my tunic; his weight is warm and reassuring as I hug him with one arm and drag the gold fledgling with the other.

I stagger like a drunken man down the gangplank, trying to aim _anywhere_ that's not the palace, but my people won't let me. Not really conscious of what they're doing, they bump against me and herd me along with them, all of us lumbering into the palace with the queen's loot, and tears of despair start sliding down my face. "R...run, Hiccup...fly away..." The warning comes too late, and he can't understand it anyway, but I get the sense that he wouldn't leave me even if he knew what I'm trying to tell him. He curls tighter against me and I feel him lick my skin, the sensation briefly jolting a little more alertness into my drugged brain. "Hiccup...Hiccup, I..."

My feet know the way to the throne room so well. By the time I'm able to convince them to stagger sideways, we've already entered, and the best I can do is skulk among the shadows along the edges of the room. I reach a cluster of crumbling statuary and deliberately trip. The impact of my fall buys me some more alertness, and I huddle in hiding with the dragons, listening to the clink of gold and gems being dumped into the vast, never-filled hole cut into the floor before the throne. I don't think there's enough treasure in the whole world to fill up that hole, yet we're forced to keep trying anyway.

Her approaching footsteps reverberate, shaking the room, and I can't help a moan of fear. She's coming, she's coming, I can sense tendrils of her oily thoughts wisping away from her main focus on the treasure to sluggishly investigate every anomaly, including _me_. Soon she'll realize that she's sensing me, soon she'll find me and crush me and eat my broken body, she-

She appears on the threshold, all twenty feet of her. At the sight of the treasure, her face lights up grotesquely, and she shrugs her shoulders in pleasure, causing fire from her giants' magic to burst all along her arms and spurt from her back like tattered wings. The gold fledgling whimpers and presses harder against me. Hiccup is silent but trembles, then licks me and bites my neck, as if trying to strengthen the physical bond between us can prevent death from separating us. It's not like there's anything else he can do in the face of such a hopelessly overpowering threat.

The queen's greed makes her stupid. She falls thunderingly to her knees and scoops up vast handfuls of treasure, coins splattering down her front as she lifts the gold to her huge nostrils and inhales. Everyone who's already brought tribute flees to the edges of the room; those who haven't rush forward to fling their treasure into the pit before following suit. Most of it is emptied out of chests or large sacks.

One man stumbles up to the edge of the hole, fumbles around in his satchel, and drops in a couple of pieces of jewelry.

He's dead.

The queen's enormous eyes snap to him. He gazes up at her with a foolish little smile, as if he expects to be praised for his paltry offering. Then he sees the rage on her face, his expression changes to one of terror, and he turns to run.

She seizes him, her tight grip drawing blood, and I cover my ears against his screams as she lifts him up to her mouth. I squeeze my eyes shut before I can actually see the reason why his cries are suddenly cut off, but the dragons are still watching, and their very dragonish shrieks of horror echo through the room. They've revealed themselves. The queen knows there are dragons in our midst. I force my eyes open again, only to find the headless corpse dripping forgotten in her hand as she stares _directly at me_. Her face twists as she finally recognizes her runaway prized slave, her enormous hand reaches out-

In her anger, she's forgotten to maintain her mental grip on us. The others are already fleeing, clear-headed enough to get as far away from the throne room as they can, and even though I'm the one her blazing eyes are fixed on, she's not fogging my mind anymore. I _run_ , holding Hiccup so tightly that I might be hurting him. The gold fledgling shoots ahead of me, arrowing for the door.

It's complete pandemonium now; everyone is screaming and running, the queen is reaching, her terrible voice drowns us all out as she bellows my name, her hand bats away people like they're twigs and sends them crashing into the walls, breaking them-

Ice gushes from her hand, giants' magic blocking the whole entryway in an attempt to catch me, but she's too late, we're already out. My people are streaming away to their various refuges. I race for the ocean, knowing that the farther away I can get from her, the looser her grip on me will be, and the weaker her magic is. I know that she's too lazy and fattened by greed to try to break out of the palace that she's outgrown; even to catch me, she won't be willing to free herself from the trap of her own making. She'd rather stay hemmed inside her palace and recline in her throne room and count her endless piles of blood-soaked gold.

The dragons are still crying out in distress as I fling myself into one of the smallest vessels that can make it to the Berk nest. The gold fledgling circles back to us after we've been sailing for a few minutes, coming to an awkward landing in the boat. It wasn't designed to hold a dragon; with her wings and tail, she takes up more than half of it.

I don't care. I don't care, we escaped, the queen's buzzing in my head slowly but steadily fades, Hiccup's warm weight assures me that he's still alive and safe, that _I'm_ alive and safe. We'll make it out of this.

The barrier isn't a problem. I can cross it easily, and the dragons recover from the disorientation with no ill effects. When things are quiet for a long time and we've grown calmer, Hiccup climbs out of my tunic and perches on one of the rowing seats. He and the gold fledgling croon softly at each other as if discussing, occasionally flapping their wings with higher-pitched chirps of excitement or frustration. It's cute watching them talk, it makes me kind of wish that Hiccup and I could talk to each other for real, without having to read each other's minds.

I decide to give the gold fledgling a name. She's the most beautiful dragon I've ever seen, so I hesitate about giving her a proper troll-warding name. Besides, she seems like she could give any troll a run for its money. I finally decide on Astrid, because of her strength and beauty.

After a while, Hiccup returns to my shoulders and purrs, and I know he's saying that he's glad I'm all right. I nuzzle him, he nuzzles me back and licks my cheek, then settles down for a quick nap.

When we reach camp, I start putting things in order and trying to get supper started. Hiccup and Astrid are having a dragon discussion, looking like they're unhappily disagreeing about something, and I leave them to it until Hiccup's meal is ready. When I approach to call him, Astrid suddenly lunges close and nips him. He yelps in surprise, and I clench my fists and wonder if I should jump in and avenge him. But then she presses close to him and twines her tail around his for a moment, before abruptly turning away and taking flight. Hiccup stares after her, looking shocked, his wings fluttering.

"...Soooo, was that...how dragons kiss, or something?"

He stares at me.

"Heh. So my little Hiccup has a girlfriend now, huh~?"

Grumbling, he flounces over to the food. I scrub my fingers down the back of his neck in teasing congratulations before seeing to my own meal.

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: I don't know enough about archery to know how exactly Toothless would re-learn to shoot, but I do know that there are one-armed and even no-armed archers out there. ...Though, they have fancier bows than Tooth does... Maybe I can figure out how to give him a crossbow...? Actually, he probably should have had one from the beginning. *wince*

Rainbow Cleaver is Rainbow Chaser (one of my Fan Characters who appears in some of my other fics), but I had to alter her name a bit since it's the dragon-turned-human characters who have troll-warding names in this AU, rather than the humans-turned-dragons like in canon. *sweatdrop*


	8. Book 1, chapter 7

_**To Put It In Perspective: The Queen Falls**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 7 (rough draft)**

The little dragon knew now. His human was his other half, they had done the impossible, their fates were entwined. Someday, they were probably going to have to die for each other, and that day would probably come soon. The only way they could avoid death was to just leave the flock and flee.

He could sense the gold fledgling's sympathy as she acknowledged his predicament, that he would surely have to forsake his flock in order to stay loyal to the person he loved most. He also sensed her sadness about losing the male she had just started to see as a potential mate, the _only_ available male of her acquaintance who met any sort of standards at all for siring her offspring.

 _"I will leave this flock too when I'm ready to make eggs,"_ she mused. _"I'll find a good male to sire my offspring,_ _not_ _Timid or Stupid and especially especially especially not Bravado!"_

 _"...I'm not dead or gone yet."_

 _"I think you will be when I am ready to mate."_

 _"Yes..."_

 _"...I still like you."_

 _"...You are very attractive."_

 _"Yes. This stealing-and-killing and bad horrible monster human queen thing is very so much BAD."_

 _"Yes, VERY."_

o.o.o.o.o

Hookfang had been one of the strongest of the queen's warriors before his capture. Though he still kept in shape as best he could, he was weakened by captivity, and so bored that he wondered sometimes if he was literally going insane.

He almost didn't know how to handle it when, one morning, dragons began to crowd noisily around the rim of the pit where he was imprisoned. Hookfang snarled at them and shook his sword and tried to climb the walls to reach them, but the only dragon who actually descended within reach was a tiny, weak-looking thing. Hookfang stared at the runt for a minute, growling, not quite sure what to do. He wanted a _challenge_ , he wanted to _spill the blood of creatures that deserved it_ , not swipe off this hatchling's head in one second.

The runt crooned at him.

"What do you want?! What'd you come down here for?! I want one of YOU!" Hookfang shouted, turning his face up to the watching adult dragons. "COME DOWN HERE AND FIGHT ME! FIGHT MEEEE!" He shrieked and leaped away when a gentle touch on his ankle startled him.

The runt crouched for a moment in apology, then approached again and rolled onto his side. The dragons above started to vocalize in confusion and dismay, and the alpha growled.

The runt ignored them, continuing to make encouraging noises as he rolled on his back like a cat and gazed at Hookfang for a moment before glancing politely away.

"...You're the little thing they keep talking about," Hookfang realized. "The one Lug thinks is sooooooo cute." The thing is, the little dragon _did_ look rather cute (and harmless), sprawled out like that as if he had absolutely no intention of attacking. Hookfang cautiously crouched down, and he could have sworn the dragon smiled. "You bring any _treats_ for me, huh? Anything to eat that's not RAW FISH?"

The runt waited patiently as the human warrior's hand stretched out toward his belly... Drawing ever closer...

The alpha's panic and rage were one and the same - he roared, frightening Hookfang into snatching up his sword again. The roar also startled the runt, who leaped to his feet in confusion.

The madness descended upon Hookfang again. All he saw now were scales and fangs and wings, so he struck out. The runt fled, shrieking, and Hookfang chased him in a bloodthirsty frenzy, screaming incoherently.

The gold fledgling and the alpha dove down into the pit. The gold flamed close to Hookfang's head, instantly drawing his attention. He sliced and hacked at her as the alpha tried to catch his offspring, but Hookfang abruptly whirled away and began bashing his sword against his shield, sending the dragons staggering with the noise. Then he raised his weapon and nearly took off the gold's head before the alpha barreled into her, knocking her aside. The runt was undefended. Hookfang slammed his foot down, trapping the desperate little creature, who did not even try to flame as Hookfang raised his sword for a killing blow...

o.o.o.o.o

SOMETHING IS WRONG. I don't know how I know, but I do. The dragons of Berk are screaming in the distance, I know that Hiccup is there with his flock, and something's wrong and I don't care if they tear me to pieces, _I have to find Hiccup_.

I've never been in a dragon nest by myself before, without human comrades rushing into battle at my side. I'm alone against a whole nest full of deadly beasts, but I'm too worked up to care; they're all crowded around a pit and I _know_ that's where Hiccup is. I try to shove my way through them, but when that's too slow, I vault on top of the closest dragon and then just run over their backs. They're so closely packed together that I can keep my footing even when they heave and rear up beneath my feet.

I can't just dive straight into the pit, it's too deep, so I hurl myself at the closest dragon, and we fall in together. He flaps madly to save himself, my weight's dragging him down but he's also slowing my fall. He and Stoick foul each other's flights when I'm low enough to drop to the ground unhurt.

My very first act is to fling up my sword and parry a while blow from, of all people, Hookfang. I thought he'd been captured in the same raid I was, but here he is, still alive after all this time, looking like he's gone completely crazy. His eyes are wild and bloodshot, and he's screaming nonsense and profanity as spit flies out of his mouth. "Hookfang! HOOKFANG SHUT UP, stop- _Stop_ attacking me, you idiot! It's me, it's Toothless!"

I catch a glimpse of Astrid's bright scales out of the corner of my eye, but where's Hiccup, _Hiccup_ , where is-?! There he is, my poor baby, curled up terrified by the wall. If he's hurt, I swear I will _kill_ Hookfang, ally or no.

I kick Hookfang down and plant my foot on his chest and hold my blade to his throat. Panting, he stares up at me, and his eyes slowly focus a little. "T...Toothless...?"

"Enough," I snarl at him. "ENOUGH. That's _my dragon_ you nearly killed, don't you dare ever TOUCH him again!"

"Toothless! Toothless! Toothless!" he screams, looking crazy again, but this time with fear rather than fury. I let him go, and he scuttles away to a far corner of the pit, crouched and shaking.

I run to my dragon and scoop him up and hug him close. "Oh, Hiccup, Hiccup, _Hiccup_ , you crazy dragon, don't ever scare me like that again!" He licks me but then starts struggling in my arms and barking frantically, biting my shoulder when I don't understand. "What are you-?!"

There's a roar behind me, and I manage to clumsily dodge roll with Hiccup still tucked in one arm. The alpha, Stoick, is charging at me, I dropped my shield back there so I could grab Hiccup, _no_!

I manage to dump Hiccup to the side and bring up my sword in time. I swipe so viciously that Stoick is forced to swerve away, then I press my advantage and leap at him, smashing the hilt of my sword on his head. He staggers, too disoriented to flame, and I raise my sword high to cut off his head, though he's so huge it's going to take more than one blow.

Hiccup's desperate scream seems to freeze my blood. I hesitate, then my little dragon crashes into me and swarms over me in a panic and bites my sword arm, and I know that he's begging, _begging_ me to spare his alpha's life.

I take too long to react. Something heavy slams into me, knocking me painfully to the ground. Before I can recover, dragons are piling on top of me, their sharp claws digging into my skin. They finally realized that their alpha can't handle this on his own, so now they're all crowding down here, there are too many of them, they're pinning me. I scream, struggling, but it's no use. I can hear Hiccup screaming too, but I can't see him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a couple of dragons struggling to lift Hookfang's limp body out of the pit.

Finally, enough dragons leave that I can see Hiccup again. He and Stoick are circling each other, Stoick bellowing and flaring his wings and lashing his tail, he's scaring _me_ , but even though Hiccup's a fraction of his size, my little dragon is screeching back without a trace of submission, flaring his own wings and lashing his own tail. Hiccup, Hiccup, my precious, you are so brave and magnificent, but that monster is going to _crush you_.

Stoick leaps, and I scream again when he seizes Hiccup in his powerful jaws, but for some reason he doesn't bite hard enough to draw blood or break my little dragon's neck. Hiccup struggles madly, snarling and spitting, ignoring the growls of the giant pinning him down, and _finally_ Stoick backs off, looking almost confused at Hiccup's utter refusal to be cowed.

Hiccup plants his paws in a strong stance and _roars_. It's nothing compared to the alpha's roar, but it's so impressive compared to the sounds he usually makes. Stoick roars back, drowning him out. Hiccup whirls in a little circle of frustration, then darts to me and perches on my head. I can't really see him anymore, but I can feel him nuzzling and licking me, marking me with scent.

Stoick stares at us for what feels like a really long time. Then he lowers his head aggressively and starts making this low, scary growl, and now Hiccup is finally frightened. His cries turn high and desperate, he rushes to the alpha and _now_ he starts going through the submission routine, flopping over to expose his belly and his throat and basically doing the dragon version of groveling, but Stoick doesn't seem to even notice him anymore.

He steps over Hiccup and heads straight to me, and I'm terrified. Ordinarily, I could take him on in a fight and have a chance of winning or at least escaping, but when I'm _weaponless_ and _defenseless_ and _helpless_ and _laid out on the ground_ , with his massive bulk _looming_ over me and oh God those teeth, there's murder in his eyes and he's going to kill me, he's going to kill me and I can't stop him and Hiccup can't stop him and-

His jaws close on the back of my neck, it's a warning because even though his fangs pierce skin and I'm bleeding, I'm still alive, aren't I? It's a warning. That growl reverberating through my entire body is a warning. He won't kill me at this particular second but I might as well count myself dead because there's no other future for me when I'm at this creature's mercy.

He turns away and grabs Hiccup and flies up with him as if he's hauling prey. Hiccup struggles and screeches, I know he's calling for me but I can't reach him, I can't save him, I can't even save myself. The other dragons finally let go of me and leave me alone in the pit, bruised and bleeding and weak with horror and grief.

o.o.o.o.o

The little dragon was expelled from the nest, his flock-scents stripped before he was chased beyond the borders of their territory. It was a terrible punishment for a dragon to be made solitary against his will, but what made it outright cruel was that his other half was still held captive within the nest. Such a thing had never been heard of - whatever was done to one half of a heart must obviously be done to the other as well.

...Yet, for a dragon to have a human as his other half was not a thing that had ever been heard of, either. Not all the runt's flockmates believed it had actually happened, despite the runt's marks on his beloved human. It was too far outside their comprehension, and humans were not capable of making such complex scent-marks. The runt could offer no substantial proof that his human reciprocated his feelings.

The runt hid, crushed and broken-hearted, until well after nightfall. It was a long time before he was able to navigate his way back to the nest and sneak into his other half's prison without being detected.

o.o.o.o.o

I wake up from a nightmare, only to discover that the nightmare is real. Then a soft croon in the darkness makes me burst into tears of relief, and I blindly hold out my arms.

Hiccup rushes into them. He covers me with scent-marks and tries to squirm closer into me even though he's already about as close as he can get. I tuck my tunic over him to eliminate that last thin layer between us. He curls up over my heart and cries softly. His whimpers continue on and on and on, we're together again but I still have a death sentence hanging over my head and I've lost my freedom. Everything is so _horrible_ , but at least we are not alone anymore... I comfort him until he's finally quiet, and I fall asleep as I'm singing softly to him.

I'm trapped in that pit for two days. The only good thing about it is Hiccup, having him there to keep me company and comfort me and cheer me up whenever I feel like despair will swallow me whole. He occasionally sneaks out and brings me treats, since I'm so _hungry_ and there's nothing to eat except for, once in a while, a raw fish or two. Sometimes the other human prisoners (there are _other human prisoners_ , how many others had still been alive when we'd given them up for dead?!) shout back and forth between the pits - I eventually recognize Stormfly, Meatlug, and the twin-pair Barf & Belch, in addition to Hookfang. They're just as surprised to hear that I'm their fellow prisoner now, and are fascinated when I tell them about Hiccup's power to counteract the queen's mind fog.

Hiccup always hides whenever a dragon passes close, and I have a feeling he's not supposed to be here. Maybe they ostracized him for fraternizing with the enemy. I don't know why Stoick decided to keep me alive, and I'm starting to get to the point where I wish he'd just bitten my head off my shoulders and ended my misery.

On the second night, there's a raid. Hiccup huddles in my tunic, frightened; then _I'm_ scared when two dragons descend into the pit. None of them have come near me since my capture, I don't _like_ them here now when I'm weakened and unarmed.

They chase me down and catch me with their sharp claws and work together to haul me out of the pit. Then they dump me on the grass and flee.

The nest is strangely deserted. The human warriors look confused as they search for treasure and jump at moving shadows, but don't see a single dragon to fight. They stare at me as I'm deposited before them, and I instinctively bring up my arms to shield Hiccup, who's still hidden in my tunic. "Hi."

"Who are you?"

It's too dark for them to see me well enough to recognize me. "Toothless."

"Toothless?!"

"Ach, laddie, you should have run to the edge of the world."

I sigh. "Yeah, I'm starting to get the idea..."

I don't like the way they're approaching me.

"Come on now, lad."

"No, thanks," I say guardedly.

"She wants you," someone snaps. "We're supposed to find you and bring you in."

 _NO_. I make a dash for it, but I'm weak from hunger and they're on a raid and ready to fight, so they catch me easily. I yell and thrash, but they start to bind my arms behind my back. I struggle wildly and manage to break free for a second - and the thought comes to me in a flash that there's no hope for me, I'm a dead man walking, but if I can help Hiccup escape...

I use my precious seconds of freedom to rip him out of my tunic and fling him into the air. He squawks and flaps madly to stay airborne, then he tries to fly back to me but he is _wasting_ the time he could be using to escape as my former comrades gape at him in surprise. "NO!" I yell, flapping my hands to shoo him away. "Go away! Go AWAY, Hiccup, leave me alone!"

Then they start shooting. Hiccup and I both scream, but the first shot misses and he manages to dodge the second, then he gets the idea and races away, soon out of range. "Be safe, Hiccup," I whisper in farewell.

My own people grab me again and tie me up and drag me to their ship and throw me into the hold. I'm on my way back to the queen. When she sees me, she will rip me apart with her bare hands. I wish I'd had a chance to tell Hiccup goodbye for real.

 _To be continued..._


	9. Book 1, chapter 8

_**To Put It In Perspective: The Queen Falls**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 8 (rough draft)**

As soon as the human ship set sail, the dragon alpha and his warriors followed, staying out of sight.

For so long, they'd had no way to penetrate the barrier of supernatural fog that guarded the humans' territory, but now at last they had found the key. The little runt was no longer of their flock, but he would always be his sire's offspring. The bond that remained between father and child could be tracked, and by extension, the bond that had formed between a two-halves pair. This time, the flock would not fail.

The runt, left behind, wept for a long time, whimpering his sobs and howling his grief. The dragons who had remained behind did not chase him out of their nest, but none approached him except the gold fledgling.

She nuzzled him softly, and he pressed against her to seek comfort. She licked him, but comfort was not her real purpose, for she didn't see why half of a heart should let his beloved be taken from him, particularly when it gave the dragons such a unique opportunity to attack the queen with all the strength of their flock.

 _"Too powerful!"_ the runt screeched angrily. _"Sire dead, not-flockmates dead, Half Of Me dead dead dead dead-!"_

She head-butted him to shut him up. _"Crying won't make them not dead._ _ **You're**_ _the crazy one,_ _ **you**_ _think of something crazy and_ _ **useful**_ _so we can fight, fight, fight!"_

 _"All every flock-dragon fight her, she will kill us; all every pack-human-"_ He froze. Then his wings fluttered with excitement, and he raced away toward the pits. The gold fledgling swept her tail and crowed triumphantly, then hurried to round up the rest of her agemates.

The runt went for Hookfang first, the most challenging of the captives and the one he wished he'd had the chance to succeed with. He brought a peach with him, and Hookfang, unsteadily fumbling for his sword at the sight of the dragon, blinked stupidly when the animal simply laid the fruit down in offering and then stepped back.

"...You gonna...you gonna trick me again, like you did...last time...? Uuuggghhh, so hungry..." After a while, when the dragon did nothing more threatening then lie stretched out like a lounging cat, Hookfang crept forward and picked up the fruit and started to eat it, crying a little at the taste. "Mmmh...mmmh..." He couldn't finish it, and found himself just kneeling there clutching the half-eaten peach like a lifeline.

He didn't have the strength to react when he felt a gentle touch, but the purring dragon was so comforting that he wrapped his arms around the little runt and hugged him, not caring if he was going to get bitten. "Let me go...let me go, please please _please_ let me go so I can die breathing fresh air, aaaahhhh, you've broken me, you monsters _broke me_ , I hate you..." But he smiled when the runt crooned and licked the tears from his cheeks. "...Lug was right, you're cute. I still hate you."

He tensed when he saw the other fledglings flutter one by one into the pit, but they nervously kept to the far side of it, and it was hard to be afraid with the runt chattering and dancing and warbling between them.

Eventually, the brown male started to slink forward, not reacting when the runt nuzzled him encouragingly. The runt bounded back to Hookfang and chirped at him, then picked up his hand in gentle teeth and gave it a little tug.

"Oh, so am I supposed to touch _him_ now? Is _he_ going to give me a peach? I actually want some freaking RED MEAT, and, I can't believe I'm saying this, _vegetables_ , I hope I never eat another fish as long as I live...!" As Hookfang spoke, his fingertips touched the brown scales of the fledgling, who nervously cringed away. Exasperated, the runt got behind him and _shoved_ him toward Hookfang, who grinned and mischievously grabbed the brown to caress him roughly. The fledgling yelped and struggled, but then let out an involuntary purr when Hookfang happened to find the sweet spot between his wings. "Heh."

Encouraged, the runt barked at his other agemates and then led the way to Stormfly's pit. The woman jerked into a fighting stance and snapped "Stay away from me!" when she saw the gold fledgling approaching, the one who'd hurt her most. The gold hesitated uncertainly. The runt crooned and came to twine around Stormfly's legs like a cat.

After a long moment, during which neither the gold nor any of the other fledglings did anything threatening, Stormfly stooped to lift the runt with one arm. "What's this new game, little one?" she growled.

He laid his head against her chest and gazed up at her hopefully. After a while, she ducked her head to kiss him, he was too irresistible, especially when he mewed at her like a kitten. " _Why_ are you so cute?! Is that your secret weapon or something?! Why?! What do you want, you little flirt?! I'm going to forgive that monster for your sake, aren't I. Just bat your pretty little eyes at me, why don't you, and watch me fall at your feet and give in to your every whim!"

The runt cocked his head in confusion, since he couldn't tell whether she was angry or affectionate (it somehow seemed like both at the same time). For the sake of his agemates, he tried hard not to squawk in alarm or struggle when the human woman buried her face in his stomach. He shivered a little at the sensation of her breath, and he thought uneasily of her teeth, blunt as they were, so close to his soft underside.

Stormfly suddenly released him and held out her hand to the gold fledgling and said gruffly, "Well, I suppose we're the best of friends now, is that it?"

Leaving them to bond, the runt led the last three fledglings to the twins' pit, and then last of all, he let Meatlug have the timid tan.

Those two took to each other better than any of the others did. Despite the tan's size, Meatlug quickly recognized his sweet disposition, and decided that, in his own way, he was just as cute as the tiny runt. "That's why you fled so much," she crooned, caressing the tan as he purred and basked in the affection. "You only fight because they force you to, just like me. Awww, you're just a big sweetheart, aren't you."

With all of them working together, they managed to haul the humans out of the pits. Hookfang made a break for freedom, pursued by the roaring brown, but then suddenly came trotting back of his own accord. "Are we taking down the queen?"

The humans all looked at each other. "Most of the fighting adults are missing," Stormfly observed.

"I don't want to go back to the queen," Meatlug said in distress. "I'd rather die."

"Die in her palace or in these pits... Does it make a difference?" the twins mumbled.

"I wanna kill some dragons!" Hookfang yelled. "I want _revenge_ on these monsters, but there's NO ONE TO FIGHT except those decrepit things over there and those babies over there! _Where are the things I can kill_?!"

"We wouldn't have been imprisoned if the queen hadn't made us raid them in the first place," Stormfly said grimly. "Let's keep our priorities straight, Fang." Seeing the runt watching her anxiously, she smiled a little and scooped him up onto her shoulder. "Is that what you've been after all this time, sweetie? You know she's a giantess, don't you? A magic user? A _corrupted_ one? Did you know she can control weak minds, and that she's raised us from infancy to be weak and pliable? Did you know that, sweet thing?" Her heart melted a bit as the runt trilled at her questioningly.

"That runt is our secret weapon," Hookfang snarled eagerly. "You heard what Toothless said - he can keep the buzzing at bay, he can drown her out! Let's _take her on_ , we'll take the runt with us and keep our heads long enough to rip her heart out!"

There was some arguing about this, but eventually it was decided that they would try, especially when someone proposed that it might not just be Hiccup who was unique - after all, no one had never tried to approach the queen with a dragon _ally_ before. It seemed likely that all dragons could produce that counteractive thrumming. "We'll need a ship," Meatlug said. "It's too far to travel on foot without provisions."

"Where are we going to get a ship?" Stormfly huffed. "We can't _build_ one good enough to get us there, not without tools."

"Horses?" one of the twins wondered, her expression silently acknowledging the fact that horses would probably be even harder to obtain than a ship.

"Oooorrr," Hookfang said, suddenly sounding gleeful, "we could _ride dragons_."

The dragons he was pointing to, too old for fighting except as a last defense, looked alarmed and shied away. However, they didn't put up much of a fight when they were caught, and the fledglings were very persuasive. In less than an hour, five dragons soared out of the nest with humans on their backs, accompanied by the troop of fledglings. _"Stay alive, Half Of Me,"_ the runt chittered anxiously. _"I'm coming."_

The adult dragons were no longer very fast fliers, but they could still travel more swiftly than sailing ships. They alighted on shore near the territorial barrier, where their riders dismounted and approached.

The humans were a little surprised when the fledglings clung to them, until Stormfly pointed out that the only way a dragon could get through the barrier was if they were accompanied by a human. Otherwise, they'd be thrown into confusion and turn away without being able to penetrate. Perhaps it was even only possible to attack the queen if the two species worked together, since only humans were immune to the barrier and only dragons were immune to the mind control.

The fledglings clung blindly or lolled in their arms as if drugged. Only the runt crouched without moving on Stormfly's shoulder, making a long, low ratchety sound, his eyes looking more as if they saw something on a different plane of reality than as if he was lost. He was, in fact, capable of making it through the fog without escort, for the strength of his bond with his other half gave him something solid enough to fiercely focus on.

The fledglings had just started to regain their wits when the sound of roaring and crashing became audible in the distance. "They've started!" Hookfang yelled, and broke into a run.

 _To be continued..._


	10. Book 1, chapter 9

_**To Put It In Perspective: The Queen Falls**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 9 (rough draft)**

I'm so scared I can't stand it. There's something truly terrible about knowing that you're heading toward your own death, that you can't escape and that you won't die quickly. You can't do anything except keep enduring the knowledge as you're dragged closer and closer and closer.

I'm glad that Hiccup's not here, that he's safe - but at the same time, I miss him _so much_ , I miss his warmth and his sweetness and, just, how he looks and sounds and smells, I _miss him_. I've never loved anyone in my whole life as much as I love him, not even my little sister and...and not even my father. It feels so strange to say that about a dragon, but it's true.

The buzzing in my head starts up as usual, but then...withdraws. Enough of her was in my head that I know why she's withdrawing: she sensed my anguish and _wants me to suffer_. I hate her SO MUCH.

No one bothers to untie my feet and let me walk to my own doom. Zombie-eyed, someone throws me over her shoulder and carries me to shore. I strain at the ropes, but they hold fast. I hate this. I wish I could at least die fighting.

Then the dragons attack.

I'm too stupefied to do more than stare at first, but gradually the zombie haze clears from my comrades' faces, and they're shocked and I'm shocked because _there are dragons in our territory_. How did they _get_ here?! There are dragons, DRAGONS in the queen's territory, what-?! What-?!

They fly in roaring and blazing, shooting fire at us, and people flee. There's no reason for us to stay and fight if she's not making us; what-

The warrior who was carrying me dumps me on the ground and flees as well. The dragons look confused at our total lack of resistance for a minute, but then Stoick roars and they start attacking the palace, mostly smashing windows so they can get inside.

My shock is slowly turning to glee and elation. Hah. HAH. She would never expect dragons to show up on her doorstep, they'll finally get their revenge on her and torch her, they'll-

Except she can torch them, too. She's a giantess and a _magic user_ , she has fire and flight and armor, too. AND ice AND lightning AND mind manipulation, and, and, and, she's going to slaughter them all and I have to _DO SOMETHING_ but I can't because I'M TIED UP AND CAN'T MOVE.

I can hear her screams of rage now. Then a huge section of the roof suddenly explodes, sending a few dragons tumbling violently through the air. Her enormous hand reaches out like a hideous creature rising up out of its grave, she hauls half her body onto the roof and starts blasting spells at every dragon she sees.

They're no match for her. They seem so powerful to us puny little humans, but compared to her, they might as well be a flock of sparrows.

Most of the dragons have apparently realized this, since they're now fleeing just like my own people did. Poor Stoick, who must know by now that he's in over his head, confers with his beta, whom we call 'Gobber the Belch.' I'm surprised to see the two of them suddenly roar and charge the queen again, but then I realize that, of course, they're buying time for the rest of their flock to escape. They're going to die. I don't know what will happen to the Berk flock when their alpha is dead.

The queen's face is twisted with rage, she raises her hand as it starts to glow, preparing to blast Stoick into oblivion...

Then she screams and her shot goes wild, and my nose is flooded with the stench of burning hair. More dragons swoop into sight - fledglings, crowing defiance-

ONE OF THEM IS HICCUP. I scream from pure joy, I thought I would never ever see him again but _there he is_ , Hiccup Hiccup Hiccup I love you SO MUCH.

He's barking orders at the other fledglings like a general marshaling his troops. Lusty human yells accompany him, and I'm astonished to see Stormfly and the others charging forward, thin and bruised from their long imprisonment but still waving their weapons with gusto.

At last, Hiccup dives down to me, leaving his flockmates to continue the assault on the queen. "Hiccup!"

He chirps the sound that I recognize as his name for me, over and over again as he licks my face and frantically nuzzles me.

"Hiccup~ Hiccup Hiccup Hiccup _I missed you too_!"

He gets hold of himself and starts attacking the ropes, but it's slow going. There are too many of them, he's having to tear and scratch at them one by one, this is _taking too long_ and I can see the human and dragon assault teams starting to drop one by one. Meatlug stumbles to her knees and the tan fledgling is knocked out of the air and a bloodied Hookfang is sprawled on the ground looking dazed, and now the queen is reaching back to seize the brown fledgling and rip him off the ear he'd been savaging.

Then she catches sight of me. The queen shrieks my name, and shudders wrack my body. She reaches down and lifts me up, I'm screaming, Hiccup's screaming too as he zips helplessly around me, the pressure is unbearable, she's going to crush me to death- Then she bellows in pain, someone must have taken advantage her distraction, and she _flings me_.

If she'd thrown me up instead of out, I'd be dead. Even as it is, the pain of hitting water at such speed is unbearable, and it takes every ounce of training for me to hold on to the deep breath I'd sucked in as soon as I realized I'd be falling into the ocean. The water's not too deep here, but definitely deep enough to kill me when I'm tied up and can't swim. I'm too bruised and shocked to struggle much as my body sinks. How am I gonna survive this how am I gonna survive this how am I gonna survive this?!

There's Hiccup, diving into the water and swimming toward me, but now he can barely make any progress at all with the waterlogged ropes. I've trained to hold my breath for about ten minutes (more under ideal conditions, which these are definitely _not_ ), but my air's not going to last forever. Certainly not long enough for poor little Hiccup to get me free - he's already starting to flounder. I-

There's a much bigger impact, and now it's _Stoick_ swimming toward us. I nearly lose some precious air to shock and apprehension. I wonder if he's here to kill me a lot quicker than drowning would, but no... He plants a heavy paw on me. Unlike Hiccup, he's big enough and strong enough to brace my body as he tears through the ropes like they're string. I'm _free_.

I surge for the surface and start swimming the short distance to where I know there'll be sand beneath my feet, but Stoick looms up behind us and propels both me and Hiccup to the shallows in a couple of seconds. I struggle upright and hold out my arm to my dragon. "Let's go, Hiccup!"

Hiccup eagerly bounds toward me, but stops dead when Stoick barks at him. For a moment, I think in outrage that the alpha is forbidding him, that Hiccup's going to abandon me and run off just because his boss told him, to, but no... There's something amazingly tender and even heartbroken in the way Stoick steps forward and nuzzles him, then licks a scent-mark onto him. Hiccup croons and nuzzles him back, and suddenly I make sense of this strangely strong affection between them and realize that maybe Stoick is Hiccup's father. Hiccup the runt is _the alpha's_ offspring. All this time I thought...I hadn't realized...

Hiccup yips at his father one last time and then hurries to me, leaping to my shoulder in two swift moves as if he's always belonged there. I run, pausing just long enough to grab weapons and a shield from downed warriors before charging at the queen. I have never before had such courage against her, or felt so capable of hurting her as I do now, with the warm weight of my dragon on my shoulders.

Stormfly goes down; almost as an extension of the same move, the queen backhands Astrid out of the air. She starts to fall, shrieking, there's something wrong with her wing. Hiccup launches from my shoulder and intercepts her, flapping madly, managing to balance her just enough for them both to land without getting too hurt. Hiccup immediately takes flight again, as Astrid, grounded now, barks urgently at him.

Hiccup doesn't return to me. Instead, he rushes at the queen's face and taunts her, zipping around too quickly for her to catch, though she tries. She's so furious and so focused on him that she doesn't notice me. I can actually take my time nocking the arrow and trying for a good shot.

I hit her in the neck, though it misses her artery because the twin dragons rammed her at just the wrong moment, knocking her off-balance. I can't fault them for trying, though, especially since she turns and blasts a spell at them (it misses), allowing Hiccup to vomit a burst of fire at her and singe her back. She shrieks, swatting at him, but he's so tiny and nimble, it's like trying to catch a fly with bare hands.

She tries a spell, blasting a wall of ice in his direction, but he makes a downward flap and then claps his wings close to his body so that he drops like a stone, falling under the path of attack in time. He flares his wings just before hitting the ground and swoops away, circling around for another shot. I stab at her feet with my sword, and enjoy the harried look on her face as she can't decide whether to go for me or Hiccup.

She decides on both, aiming one hand at him and the other at me, and unleashes streams of fire. I dodge roll; Hiccup's all right, he's protected by his scales. She tries again, this time with ice, but Hiccup's on her complete opposite side by this time and I'm shooting at her butt. Kind of a waste of arrows, since that's probably the least lethal place I could shoot her in, but it'll still hurt and she'll go out of her mind with indignation, hah.

All right, enough messing around. I need to gain higher ground. I shout for Hiccup so he can see what I'm doing, then start clambering up staircases and rubble to the upper floors. The queen can see what I'm doing, too, but I don't mind her blasting at me, since the reason Hiccup's lasted this long fluttering around her head like that is because the tactic works best when she's having to split her attention between him and me.

Once I'm high enough, I start shooting for her throat and eyes. She's so busy trying to dodge my shots that she doesn't have time to cast magic. She's also too distracted to fend off Hiccup, who seizes the opportunity to flame her ear canal. She howls in agony, half-deaf now, but instead of retreating, she brings both hands up to clap them together, trying to crush Hiccup between them. She very nearly succeeds, and Hiccup staggers in the air, crying out.

I shoot her in the eye. She screams; Hiccup flames her again; now she's lost most of her senses and is apparently too crazed by pain to remember she's got magic, she's just flailing blindly as if hoping to catch Hiccup or me with a random swipe. I aim for the artery in her neck again, and this time, I don't miss.

As she sinks down, dying, blood pouring down her neck, she makes one last, weak swipe with her hand. This time she does catch Hiccup, completely at random. She knocks him senseless, and _he falls_.

I don't stop to think. If I pause for even one millisecond to think about it, I won't be able to do it, and then he'll fall beyond my reach and he'll die. I just shoot, mindlessly timing it by sheer skill and countless hours of practice so that the arrow hits a crevice and sticks there. It's anchored solidly enough that it can hold Hiccup's weight, and now that I have time to think about it, I'm sick with horror at what I've just done to save my dragon's life. I'm crying as I scramble toward him; I am so, so, so glad he's unconscious.

Later he'll wake up, and maybe he'll hate me, but right now he can't feel the pain of his punctured and still-tearing wing, he's dangling there completely limp instead of writhing in agony as the membrane rips almost to the bone and finally stops.

I've ruined him. He'll never fly again and it's all my fault, except I guess he'd _still_ never fly again if he's dead, but I can't help feeling guilt wrench my gut as I reach with trembling hands to unhook, as gently as I can, Hiccup's torn, bleeding body from my arrow. "Hiccup, Hiccup, it's all right, sshh, it's all right, you're okay now, I've got you, I've got you," I babble, even though it's _not all right_ and he is definitely _not okay_ and what have I done...?!

I'm going too fast trying to get back to the ground, and I slip on a patch of blood. Now I'm the one who's falling. I have just enough time, before I hit hard enough to lose consciousness, to wrap my arms tightly around Hiccup and curl my body around his.

 _To be concluded..._


	11. Book 1, chapter 10

_**To Put It In Perspective: The Queen Falls**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 10 (rough draft)**

My head...hurts... _so much_...

I think it was that keening sound that dragged me out of unconsciousness. When I open my eyes, I see Stoick slumped nearby, looking more pitiful than any alpha ever should, moaning continuously in grief. The rest of his dragon warriors are gathered around us, silent and drooping. Some of my own people are uncertainly approaching, Stormfly and her troop comforting their fledglings.

For a confused minute, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about - isn't the queen dead? She _is_ dead, isn't she?! Then I realize with a jolt of mixed feelings that they're all grieving for _Hiccup_. Of course they are - he's the child of the dragon king, he's the biggest dragon hero of this battle that is possibly the very last one of this horrible pointless war. He's still unconscious, they think he's dead, and the only reason I'm not freaking out thinking he's dead, too, is because I'm holding him so tightly against my chest that I can feel the faint pulse of his heartbeat. "We did it, Hiccup," I whisper.

I don't want to let him go, but his father deserves to know he's safe. Reluctantly, I uncurl my arms.

Stoick's eyes widen and he practically lunges forward, scaring me. He's such a _huge_ dragon, especially when I'm sprawled prone on the ground like this, but of course he doesn't pay me the least attention, his eyes are all for Hiccup. He nudges Hiccup gently, then raises his head and gives a bark of delight that sets off the whole flock, roaring and flapping their wings like crazy.

Then Stoick gazes at _me_ for a long minute, and to my surprise, he leans forward and nuzzles me. And licks a scent-mark on me. I'm touched, and the last lingering bit of resentment fades. I manage to raise a hand and pat the dragon king's neck before I lose consciousness again.

o.o.o.o.o

My people have been slaves for so long that they don't really know what to do now that our master is dead. A surprisingly high number of them decide to camp out with the dragons at their nest, apparently intending to just live there until they kick us out. I'm one of them, except in my case the decision revolves entirely around Hiccup. If he goes solitary after he recovers, then I'm with him for whatever life throws our way. If he stays with his flock, then I'm staying, too. I will crawl around on all fours and eat fish for the rest of my life if I have to, but my home is with _him_ , even if that home is a dragon nest instead of a 'proper' human village.

The dragons adjust surprisingly well to their crowd of new flightless, two-legged 'flockmates,' covering us with scent-marks and integrating us into their social structure. They don't object to my people building shelters or bringing in all kinds of not-fish things for food.

The dragons _are_ really protective of their recovered treasure hoards for a while, but even they realize that we actually don't have any practical interest in it, now that there's no queen to steal it for and we've never used it as currency, anyway. As the dragons get more and more relaxed, some of my people, especially women, start appropriating a few particularly pretty pieces, but the amounts are so small and the dragons have such a surplus of treasure now (and we're all living companions, anyway) that the tiny thefts are tolerated.

I stay out of it. I only care about Hiccup. I spend most of my time with him, curled up in the cave where he and the alpha apparently live together, sharing my bed with him. He still hasn't awakened, even though it's been over a week since the battle, and now I worry sometimes that he might sleep forever.

His poor wing is still shredded. He's still never going to fly again. The injury is healed as much as it's ever going to get, but that giant hole is still there forever and I wish _so much_ that I could have saved him without crippling him. But I couldn't, he'd be dead now if I hadn't done what I did, and none of the dragons have held it against me for a moment, not even Stoick. The alpha is so glad that his son is still alive. Even though he's busy with dragon business, he stops by often to croon at our unconscious living treasure and nuzzle him and make sure he's all right.

Though I don't know if Hiccup will still be all right if he keeps up this _never-waking-up_ thing for too long...

o.o.o.o.o

I _feel_ it. Hiccup is _stirring_.

Excited, I suck in a breath and tilt Hiccup a bit so I can lay my hand on his chest, reassuring myself with his heartbeat. I scratch him lightly to encourage him to wake up. "Hey, Hiccup...hey, buddy, hey, open your eyes? I can feel you~ I know you're there~ Come on, little guy, it's time to wake up now. Please?"

Slowly, his beautiful green eyes crack open, and I can't help making a girly squeal of delight. He croons very softly at me.

"Hiccup~!" I bury my face in his stomach, which is so warm and a lot softer against my face than the harder scales on the rest of his body are. I lift my head again and grin at him. With a bit of difficulty, he licks my cheek. "Come on, buddy, up and at 'em!" I try to nudge him onto his paws, but he yelps; gah, too fast! I want to grab him and squeeze him and whirl him around, but the poor thing is still too fragile for that, so I have to vent my joy by jumping to my feet and doing a little dance around the cave.

A shocked croaking sound draws my attention again, and when I look back at Hiccup, my heart suddenly plummets. He's discovered his wing.

He stares at it for a minute, making faint horrified noises, and I creep back to him feeling sick with guilt. Before I can stop him, he leaps into the air and flaps madly as if trying to take flight, and I manage to catch him before he crashes.

He makes his horrible wail, and on impulse, I flop onto my side and expose my belly in a dragon apology. He doesn't even acknowledge it as he staggers close and curls into my chest, seeking comfort. I put my arms around him and kiss him and whisper apologies.

After a while, he recovers enough to raise his head again and flutter his wings testingly. He gives the torn one a long look, more appraising now than horrified, then carefully folds both wings close against his sides. He raises his head high, gazing at me. Then he nuzzles me, croaks a _"Let's go"_ noise, and moves slowly toward the cave mouth.

Hookfang chooses that moment to race by, waving a sword and hollering as if he's in the heat of battle. Hiccup squawks in alarm and leaps back. He forgets about his wing and flutters as if trying to get airborne; I catch him again, and he nestles in my arms and licks me anxiously. Then he seems to realize that the brown fledgling, whom Fang has named 'Snotlout,' is clinging to his human's back, flapping madly as he tries to keep his balance on Hookfang's active body.

Stormfly follows close behind, her gait and Astrid's balance much more graceful. The troop has been practicing this for a couple of days now, since it can sometimes be useful for a human-and-dragon pair to know how to move together. They've also been practicing team attacks, figuring out how best to use each species' strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. Human-and-dragon pairs can be _much_ more deadly to prey (or potential enemies) than when we're limited to just one species or the other.

Hiccup, now perched as easily on my shoulders as if he'd never left them, stares out at his transformed nest in amazement. "Yup," I laugh, "we're all family now. You're cool with that, right?" Hiccup warbles in delight.

Stoick, seeing his son awake, bounds over to us and barks at Hiccup, who stiffens for a moment before crooning at his father and hopping delicately from my shoulders to his. They nuzzle each other's faces, then all sorts of dragons are coming to greet Hiccup.

Astrid fights her way through the crowd of bigger dragons and purrs when she sees Hiccup. She nips him, making him yelp, but then she presses right into him and twines her tail with his. He looks shocked for a minute, then hesitantly nuzzles her cheek. She barks something and leaps away, pausing in this sort of coy little, _"Well, aren't you going to chase me~?"_ pose.

Hiccup's head whips between her and me; crowing, I scoop him onto my shoulder and charge at his little girlfriend. Astrid shrieks with what sounds like laughter and leaps into the air.

Stormfly and all the other humans and dragons of her troop come swooping in to turn the courtship chase (?) into a race or a game, and the rest of that afternoon, where I'm free and the war is over and the person I love most is safe and alive and happy, is the most perfect one I can ever remember having in my whole life.

 _To be continued in Book 2 - The King Rises._

Author's Notes: Although I do hope to cover HTTYD2 (and HTTYD3) eventually, I can't promise it'll be anytime soon. At the moment, I've been drafting _Carried Off_ like a madwoman this whole month, so I probably won't work on anything else until either I finish CO or my muse gets distracted.


End file.
